Elsie Napanangka Granites Mina Mina Women's Dreaming

Elsie Napanangka Granites has one of the longest artists’ working histories in her home community of Yuendumu, located on the Tanami Track north-west from Alice Springs. Elsie began painting in 1987 soon after the art centre was formed in her community. She has focused on the traditional Women’s Dreaming stories, including the important Mina Mina ceremonial stories and the Jukurrpa of her own traditional Country at Jayinki.

Elsie has maintained a palette of minimal colour, drawing on the earth colours along with black and white, to create strongly graphic works that show the flow of the country and the important Dreaming tracks that cross over and through country, giving it that substantive meaning that creates the Law in the Land. That Jukurrpa is the connection between the people and their land, it informs the ceremonies and songs and gives the identity to the people belonging to that land.

Elsie is a Warlpiri artist, perhaps most closely associated with the famous artist Dorothy Napangardi in her style of work – the movement across the canvas, the minimal use of colour, the fine dot work creating an ebb and flow of journeys across country. Elsie Napanangka Granites has her own style where she continues to reflect the vast desert narratives that sit across the country and form the central core for the spiritual lives of the artists and traditional owners.