Mantua Nangala & Yukultji Napangati

This January Salon 94 presents the paintings of Mantua Nangala (born c. 1959) and Yukultji Napangati (born c. 1971), two leading Aboriginal voices from the esteemed Pintupi community from the Western Australian desert.

Nangala and Napangati's works present beautiful, meticulous paintings that imbue contemporary materials with immense and expanding cosmologies of thought and visual impact. Each painting is at once a conceptual mapping and a description of the land and the record of indigenous life—and art—that has occurred on Country. Both women paint all-over compositions that follow certain criteria yet each artwork is painted with subtle color shifts and formal patterns that invite the viewer into the work as the future of tradition is considered in practice.

Concurrent with this exhibition, both artists will be featured prominently in Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu: Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from the Australian Desert at NYU's Grey Art Museum. This is the first U.S. exhibition to survey Australia’s most globally recognized Aboriginal art movement. For the past five decades, Papunya Tula Artists—the oldest Aboriginal-owned arts organization in Australia—has stood at the forefront of contemporary Aboriginal art, producing some of the most iconic art and artists in Australian history. 

Salon 94 has been exhibiting artists from Papunya Tula since 2015 and both Nangala and Napangati were included in 2024's Desert + Coast: Seven Elder Aboriginal Painters, the largest gallery exhibition of contemporary Aborigional art to date internationally.

For more information, please contact Andrew Blackley [andrew@salon94.com]