Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi Biography

Date of Birth 1967Anmatyerre Language Group Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi was born in 1967 at Mt Allan in the Northern Territory. Nungurrayi is the eldest daughter of one of the best known First Generation Indigenous Australian artists, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, who sadly passed away in 2002. Through her father’s cultural and artistic tutelage, as well as through growing up in an environment with an abundance of other artists present in her close community, Nungurrayi developed great artistic skill and individualistic style from a very young age. Nungurrayi was only 16 years old when she won the Alice Springs Art Award, which makes her one of the youngest recipients of this accolade to this day.  Nungurrayi’s Anmatyerre heritage inspires the rich subject matter of her beautifully intricate works, through the Dreaming stories that have been passed down to her from paternal grandmother, Long Rose Nungula. In dazzling displays of colour she paints (among others) Bush Tucker, Women’s Ceremony, Serpent, Goana and Seven Sisters Dreamings. Awards2020 Part of the Australian Pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020
2016 Vivid Projection Programme, Opera House, Sydney
2014 Art Tram, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne
2008 Chelsea Flower Show, London – Gold Medal
1993 Alice Springs Art Prize, Record Cover for ‘Coloured Stone’
1991 Professional Development Grant, Aboriginal Arts Unit, Australia Council for the Arts CollectionsNational Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
Holmes A Court Collection, Perth
Kelton Foundation Collection, Santa Monica
Winterthur Collection, Switzerland
Corrigan Collection, Sydney
HRH Queen Elizabeth, UK
Richard Branson Collection, UK
Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Maroondah City Council Art Collection, Maroondah, VIC
Hank Ebes Collection, Melbourne
Gillian & Watson McAllister Collection, Sydney