Yinarupa Nangala Pintupi language group, circa 1959

Yinarupa Nangala is a Pintupi woman who was born west of what is the Kiwirrkurra community today, towards Jigalong.

Yinarupa Nangala’s family is deeply connected to the Papunya Tula Artists as her father Yanatjarri Tjampitjinpa, her late husband Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrati, and her brother Ray James Tjangala were all artists or shareholders themselves. Yinarupa arrived in Papunya in 1964 and moved back to Pintupi country in the mid-1980s. She painted her first canvases for Papunya Tula Artists at Kiwirrkura in June 1996. In 1999, she contributed to the Kiwirrkurra women’s painting as part of the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal. In 2009 she was awarded the Telstra General Painting Prize at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

—Fred Myers and Henry Skerritt in Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu: Past & Present Together: 50 Years of Papunya Tula Artists, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia

She paints the country around Mukula and the women's ceremony associated with it. The story is passed down from her father's mother. The shapes in the painting represent the features of the country, as well as bush foods. Women are represented by the 'U' shapes and kampararpa berries are represented by the circles. The tree-like shapes that run across her paintings are the trees used to make spears. This is Yinarupa's unique representation of the story that Turkey Tolson and his sister, Mitjili Napurulla, paint (both of whom are also family). —Kate Owen Gallery Pty Ltd.

 Alternative spellings: Yinarupa Gibson Nangala