Gwenda Turner Nungurrayi

DOB: 1978
BORN: Mt Allen Station
LANGUAGE GROUP: 
COMMUNITY: Yuendumu

Gwenda Turner Nungurrayi was born in 1978 at Mt Allen Station near Yuendumu to the North East of Alice Springs. Gwenda is the daughter of Maureen Nampitjinpa Hudson. Gwenda’s style of art is reminiscent of her mothers. Maureen has passed on her stories to her daughters, Gwenda and Jillian, who have been painting artwork since their teenage years. Gwenda art started when she was just 15 years old.

Gwenda’s artworks have developed over the last few years. Her style has moved away from that of her mother Maureen and taken on its own elegant signature form. Sometimes using only white paint on black canvas and other times using a wide variety of bright, bold colours, her artworks have become more and more intricate as time goes by.

Gwenda as a young child, travelled with her family through her country, gathering native bush tucker, and bush medicine around the sandhill country known as jilja-marra-marra.  The sandhills are vital as they host a wide range of flora and fauna, traditional hunting and gathering land.  In her artwork, Gwenda often depicts the rivers and sandhills of her traditional country, Warlukurlangu (Bushfire Country).