DECEASED Nellie was born in the bush at Pipalyatjara, her father's country in the late 1930's and died in January 2012.
Her mother is from Irrunytju and is Kuntjil Cooper's older sister. As a young girl Nellie attended school at the Ernabella mission and later worked in Alice Springs teaching Pitjantjatjara language with her husband. She began painting in 2007 when she moved to Nyapari with her family. Nellie Stewart is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman who only began painting in 2007.
She has an intuitve feeling for painting, drawing on her deep cultural connection to her country associated with the Tjukurpa of Minyma Kutjara (the Two Sisters Creation story) from Irrunytju.
Her works are bold and colourful landscapes depicting country traversed by the two Ancestral women.
Landmarks created by their epic journeying and activities embody a spiritual essence, which is captured in her paintings. "Nellie Stewart creates artworks of classical simplicity, based on her major Irruntyju-centred thématique of the Two Sisters Dreaming.
Stewart’s luscious, gestural works are characterised by bold colour juxtapositions, often comprising a limited palette of reds, mauves and orangey-reds.
Often she emphasises significant aspects of the broader narrative by her use of lighter, contrasting colours; for example, she sometimes deploys a light mauve or white, in order to draw attention to or highlight a significant element or motif in the narrative. Typically Nellie Stewart uses the technique of over-painting a dark background, using brushstrokes in ways that evoke the women’s ceremonial body painting designs painted onto dark skin.
Stewart uses her brush in ways akin to the ways in which women use their fingers to smear layers of paint onto the darker background, in preparation for women-only ceremonies (‘inma’).
The mark-making, such an integral part of women’s body painting, also plays a decisive role in Nellie Stewart’s extraordinary artworks." Dr Christine Nicholls.
DECEASED Nellie was born in the bush at Pipalyatjara, her father's country in the late 1930's and died in January 2012.
Her mother is from Irrunytju and is Kuntjil Cooper's older sister. As a young girl Nellie attended school at the Ernabella mission and later worked in Alice Springs teaching Pitjantjatjara language with her husband. She began painting in 2007 when she moved to Nyapari with her family. Nellie Stewart is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman who only began painting in 2007.
She has an intuitve feeling for painting, drawing on her deep cultural connection to her country associated with the Tjukurpa of Minyma Kutjara (the Two Sisters Creation story) from Irrunytju.
Her works are bold and colourful landscapes depicting country traversed by the two Ancestral women.
Landmarks created by their epic journeying and activities embody a spiritual essence, which is captured in her paintings. "Nellie Stewart creates artworks of classical simplicity, based on her major Irruntyju-centred thématique of the Two Sisters Dreaming.
Stewart’s luscious, gestural works are characterised by bold colour juxtapositions, often comprising a limited palette of reds, mauves and orangey-reds.
Often she emphasises significant aspects of the broader narrative by her use of lighter, contrasting colours; for example, she sometimes deploys a light mauve or white, in order to draw attention to or highlight a significant element or motif in the narrative. Typically Nellie Stewart uses the technique of over-painting a dark background, using brushstrokes in ways that evoke the women’s ceremonial body painting designs painted onto dark skin.
Stewart uses her brush in ways akin to the ways in which women use their fingers to smear layers of paint onto the darker background, in preparation for women-only ceremonies (‘inma’).
The mark-making, such an integral part of women’s body painting, also plays a decisive role in Nellie Stewart’s extraordinary artworks." Dr Christine Nicholls.