The contribution of women to the Papunya Tula movement, is today celebrated globally. Many women were relatives of the male artists, who for over twenty-five years had witnessed the Papunya Tula art movement’s rise from relative obscurity to celebrated phenomenon. The wives and daughters of the first generation of male Papunya Tula artists would often assist in the dotting of backgrounds on larger works, with only a few women creating their own artistic space in the early 1980s due to lack of funding to support these new artists.

The women’s initially timid foray into their own practice quickly evolved into a movement of its own. By the 1990s, women at Ikuntji nearby Walungurru in the Northern Territory became so successful in creating art from and on their community women’s center that Marina Strocchi (Australian, b 1961) was hired to assist in a collaborative workshop, during which up to eight women at a time would work together to express their individual Tjukurrpa. As these works gained recognition from within the community and the international art market, the women’s perspectives, spiritual life and deep knowledge of the land and its stories became an essential and revitalizing addition to movement.

Colorful, gestural experiments described the familiar iconography of the desert in new and exciting ways. Unrestricted by perceived conventions, they began to carve out a unique visual language that for millennia had been painted on the contours of women’s breasts and shoulders. This selection of work represents many of the significant female artists who contributed to the rise of the womens movement including Makinti Napanangka AM, Ningura Napurrula, Tjunkiya Napaltjarri and current rising star Debra Nakamarra.