Janelle Stockman Napaltjarri

Janelle Stockman Napaltjarri was born in 1976 and tragically passed away on 21st November 2009 in a car accident. I (Sabine Haider, Director Central Art) still remember clearly the day she passed away. I was immensely sad for her children, family and community, who lost a loved one. The Aboriginal art world lost an emerging and promising artist. She was only 33 years of age and is survived by her five young children. Janelle was the granddaughter of well known and respected Western Desert artist Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri, who was a founding member of Papunya Tula Artists, art cooperative. Janelle comes from Mount Dennison in the Western Desert, north of Alice Springs in Central Australia. Janelle was a very talented and up and coming next generation Aboriginal artist, she began painting in 2001.

Janelle’s Dreamings included country, sand dunes, women’s business and dancing. She drew inspiration from her traditional homelands around Hermannsburg and Papunya as well as her husband’s country Arnkawenyerr which lies just outside of Utopia on Alyawarr land. Janelle would divide her time between her husband’s family and country around Utopia and her family and country.

Very contemporary in style and colour, Janelle’s earliest artworks featured bold lineage, dot work and traditional Aboriginal iconography such as concentric circles. She was eager to branch out to produce artwork completely different to everyone else. She drew her inspiration from the landscape, her Dreamings and her artworks did not tell a Dreaming story but rather it was a means of expressing herself and her feelings of country and culture. From the moment her designs emerged her work was admired by many and her artworks were exhibited in Australia and the USA.

In April 2005 she held her first solo exhibition through Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs and in May 2006 she visited Sydney for the first time for an exhibition featuring her sand hill paintings. The tragedy of her passing not only left her young children motherless but a promising and long artist career cut short.

Central Art has removed Janelle’s biography picture out of cultural respect for her family. Traditionally in Aboriginal culture when someone has passed away they are no longer referred to by their name. Central Art acknowledges this, but given the difficulty in promoting her artworks have continued to call her by her name, but do so in a respectful manner. The removal of photographs, videos and referring by name to a person who has passed on is believed to keep the deceased persons spirit from moving on from this world.