Photo – courtesy of Art Gallery of NSW

And The Wynne-er Is...

Pintupi woman Yukultji Napangati takes out the Archibald Prize’s sister-award for her depiction of an important ancestral site.

Writer
Sally Tabart
11th of May 2018

Yukultji Napangati has just been announced as the recipient of this year’s Wynne Prize, Australia’s oldest art prize! The sister- award to the esteemed Archibald Prize (read more about this year’s winner here), The Wynne Prize recognises the best portrayal of Australian scenery or figure sculpture and comes with a $50,000 award.

Announced at The Art Gallery of New South Wales earlier today, Yukultji’s Untitled winning piece depicts a rock hole and soakage water site among sandhills west of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia where a group of women camped in ancestral times.

‘The lines represent both the sandhills surrounding the site as well as the yunala tubers underground,’ Yukultiji says of the meaning behind the work, adding that ‘the women later continued their travels east, passing through Marrapinti, Ngaminya and Wirrulnga on their way to Wilkinkarra.’ Yukultji’s impeccably detailed work illustrates her connection to country and culture.

Yukultji is a Pintupi woman and painter of the Papunya Tula group of artists, part of a generation of female painters who came after the original male Papunya Tula artists. Currently living in the Kiwirrkurra community in Western Australia, the 48-year-old has previously been shortlisted for the Wynne Prize twice before (2011 and 2013).

Check out our roundup of the finalists for the Wynne Prize here

Related Stories

In Other News