Peggy Rockman Napaljarri
Encyclopedia
Peggy Rockman Napaljarri (also known as Peggy Yalurrngali Rockman Napaljarri) (born c. 1940) is a Warlpiri
-speaking Indigenous artist
from Australia's
Western Desert
region. Born on what is now Tanami Downs
pastoral station, she learned English when working as a child with a white mining family; Peggy Rockman and her family were subsequently relocated by government authorities to Lajamanu, a new community west of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
. Peggy Rockman is one of the traditional owners of Tanami Downs.
Since first learning painting through an adult education course in 1986, Peggy Rockman has painted particular 'dreamings
', including Ngatijirri (budgerigar), Warna (snake), Laju and Ngarlu. Her work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria
and the Art Gallery of New South Wales
. She has co-written Yimikirli: Warlpiri Dreamings and Histories, a collection of texts in the Warlpiri language with English translations.
(formerly Mongrel Downs), a pastoral station in Australia's Northern Territory.
Her name given at birth was Yalurrngali: Peggy Rockman was a name subsequently given to her by white administrators. 'Napaljarri
' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name
, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans. Thus 'Peggy Rockman' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.
Peggy Rockman had three older sisters, all of whom married Jampu Jakamarra, to whom Peggy herself would also later be married. Her family first settled alongside white Australians — a couple mining gold in the Tanami Desert — when she was aged between six and eight. While still a child herself, she worked caring for the mining family's children, during which time she became a proficient English speaker. After the mine was abandoned, Peggy Rockman's family returned to a nomadic existence in the region, before settling for a time at a pastoral station called Gordon Downs. Around 1952, the family was taken by the government's Native Affairs Branch to a new settlement called Lajamanu
, in the central desert west of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
. There, Peggy Rockman was required to work full time in the settlement's kitchens, being paid with meals, and occasionally also with rations. At the settlement, she had three children with Jampu Jakamarra.
Peggy Rockman was one of six children of Milkila Jungarayi, and her siblings include artists Biddy Rockman Napaljarri
and Mona Rockman Napaljarri
. Peggy Rockman is one of the traditional owners recognised in the Tanami Downs land claim, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976
. Biographies published in 1994 and 2003 both indicated that she was living in the Lajamanu area, but by 2010 she had settled in Katherine, Northern Territory
.
. Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983. By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula
artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting. However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations
, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.
unit. The course, initially attended only by men, eventually enrolled over a hundred community members. Others who began their painting careers through that course include Mona Rockman Napaljarri
and Louisa Napaljarri
. Western Desert artists such as Peggy Rockman will frequently paint particular 'dreamings
', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights, which in Peggy's case include Ngatijirri (budgerigar
), Warna (snake), Laju and Ngarlu.
Peggy Rockman, together with linguist Lee Cataldi
, wrote Yimikirli: Warlpiri Dreamings and Histories, a work sponsored by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
, and published in 1994. It is a 200 page collection of oral texts, collected in Warlpiri and provided with English translations, for which Peggy Rockman was a source as well as editor. A senior dancer amongst her people, Peggy Rockman helped choose the site for, and participated in, a major ceremony for a 1993 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
documentary film, Milli Milli. The ceremony, called Wati Kutjarra (Two men) Dreaming, was performed with others including fellow artist Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri
.
Peggy Rockman's paintings have been hung in both public and commercial gallery exhibitions, including at the Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
and the National Gallery of Victoria's Indigenous art exhibition "Paint Up Big". Commercial galleries showing her work have included William Mora Galleries in Melbourne. A work by Peggy Rockman, Mukaki — bush plum, was included in the 2007 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Her paintings are held by the Art Gallery of New Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Warlpiri language
The Warlpiri language is spoken by about 3000 of the Warlpiri people in Australia's Northern Territory. It is one of the Ngarrkic languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family, and is one of the largest aboriginal languages in Australia in terms of number of speakers.-...
-speaking Indigenous artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
from Australia's
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
Western Desert
Western Desert cultural bloc
The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a cultural region in Australia covering about 600,000 square kilometres, including the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia...
region. Born on what is now Tanami Downs
Tanami Downs
Tanami Downs is an Indigenous Australian-owned cattle station in the Northern Territory.-Geography:Tanami Downs station covers approximately 4200 square kilometres of the Northern Territory, about 700 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.Tanami Downs lies within the Tanami bioregion of hot, dry...
pastoral station, she learned English when working as a child with a white mining family; Peggy Rockman and her family were subsequently relocated by government authorities to Lajamanu, a new community west of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
Tennant Creek is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the fifth largest town in the Northern Territory and it is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway....
. Peggy Rockman is one of the traditional owners of Tanami Downs.
Since first learning painting through an adult education course in 1986, Peggy Rockman has painted particular 'dreamings
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....
', including Ngatijirri (budgerigar), Warna (snake), Laju and Ngarlu. Her work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
and the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
. She has co-written Yimikirli: Warlpiri Dreamings and Histories, a collection of texts in the Warlpiri language with English translations.
Life
Peggy Rockman was born around 1940. The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous Australians operate using a different conception of time, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events. Some sources give only "Lima" as a location; a more detailed account suggests she was born at Mungkururrpa, on Tanami DownsTanami Downs
Tanami Downs is an Indigenous Australian-owned cattle station in the Northern Territory.-Geography:Tanami Downs station covers approximately 4200 square kilometres of the Northern Territory, about 700 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.Tanami Downs lies within the Tanami bioregion of hot, dry...
(formerly Mongrel Downs), a pastoral station in Australia's Northern Territory.
Her name given at birth was Yalurrngali: Peggy Rockman was a name subsequently given to her by white administrators. 'Napaljarri
Napaljarri (skin name)
Napaljarri or Napaltjarri is one of sixteen skin names used amongst Indigenous Australian people of Australia's Western Desert, including the Pintupi and Warlpiri. It is one of the eight female skin names...
' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name
Australian Aboriginal kinship
Australian Aboriginal kinship is the system of law governing social interaction, particularly marriage, in traditional Australian Aboriginal culture...
, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans. Thus 'Peggy Rockman' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.
Peggy Rockman had three older sisters, all of whom married Jampu Jakamarra, to whom Peggy herself would also later be married. Her family first settled alongside white Australians — a couple mining gold in the Tanami Desert — when she was aged between six and eight. While still a child herself, she worked caring for the mining family's children, during which time she became a proficient English speaker. After the mine was abandoned, Peggy Rockman's family returned to a nomadic existence in the region, before settling for a time at a pastoral station called Gordon Downs. Around 1952, the family was taken by the government's Native Affairs Branch to a new settlement called Lajamanu
Lajamanu, Northern Territory
Lajamanu is a small town of the Northern Territory in Australia. It has a population of 669 , of which a significant amount are of Aboriginal origin...
, in the central desert west of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
Tennant Creek, Northern Territory
Tennant Creek is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the fifth largest town in the Northern Territory and it is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway....
. There, Peggy Rockman was required to work full time in the settlement's kitchens, being paid with meals, and occasionally also with rations. At the settlement, she had three children with Jampu Jakamarra.
Peggy Rockman was one of six children of Milkila Jungarayi, and her siblings include artists Biddy Rockman Napaljarri
Biddy Rockman Napaljarri
Biddy Rockman Napaljarri is a Walpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She has been painting since 1986, and her work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.-Life:...
and Mona Rockman Napaljarri
Mona Rockman Napaljarri
Mona Rockman Napaljarri is a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Her paintings and pottery are held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.-Life:...
. Peggy Rockman is one of the traditional owners recognised in the Tanami Downs land claim, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976
Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976
In Australian history, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act established the basis upon which Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory could claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. The Act was strongly based on the recommendations of Justice Woodward, who chaired the Aboriginal Land...
. Biographies published in 1994 and 2003 both indicated that she was living in the Lajamanu area, but by 2010 she had settled in Katherine, Northern Territory
Katherine, Northern Territory
Katherine is a town situated southeast of Darwin in the "Top End" of Australia in the Northern Territory. It is the fourth largest settlement in the Territory after the capital Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs...
.
Background
Contemporary Indigenous art of the western desert began when Indigenous men at Papunya began painting in 1971, assisted by teacher Geoffrey BardonGeoffrey Bardon
Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM 1940, Sydney – 6 May 2003) was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement, and in bringing Australian indigenous art to the attention of the world....
. Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983. By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...
artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting. However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations
Outstation movement
The Outstation movement refers to the relocation of Indigenous Australians from towns to remote outposts on traditional tribal land.As described in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody a range of problems faced Aboriginal people living in towns.During the 1980s a number of groups...
, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.
Career
Peggy Rockman was one of a number of artists who first learned painting through a course run in 1986 at Lajamanu by an adult education officer, John Quinn, associated with the local Technical and Further EducationTechnical and Further Education
In Australia, training and further education or TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational tertiary education courses, mostly qualifying courses under the National Training System/Australian Qualifications Framework/Australian Quality Training Framework...
unit. The course, initially attended only by men, eventually enrolled over a hundred community members. Others who began their painting careers through that course include Mona Rockman Napaljarri
Mona Rockman Napaljarri
Mona Rockman Napaljarri is a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Her paintings and pottery are held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.-Life:...
and Louisa Napaljarri
Louisa Napaljarri
Louisa Lawson Napaljarri was a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Louisa commenced painting at Lajamanu, Northern Territory in 1986. Her work is held by the National Gallery of Victoria.-Life:...
. Western Desert artists such as Peggy Rockman will frequently paint particular 'dreamings
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....
', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights, which in Peggy's case include Ngatijirri (budgerigar
Budgerigar
The Budgerigar , also known as Common Pet Parakeet or Shell Parakeet informally nicknamed the budgie, is a small, long-tailed, seed-eating parrot, and the only species in the Australian genus Melopsittacus...
), Warna (snake), Laju and Ngarlu.
Peggy Rockman, together with linguist Lee Cataldi
Lee Cataldi
Lee Cataldi is a contemporary Australian poet and linguist.-Biography:Lee Cataldi was born in Sydney during World War II when, owing to her Italian heritage, she was technically an 'enemy alien'. As a child she lived in Hobart, moving back to Sydney for university...
, wrote Yimikirli: Warlpiri Dreamings and Histories, a work sponsored by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is Australia's premier institution for information about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It is located on Acton...
, and published in 1994. It is a 200 page collection of oral texts, collected in Warlpiri and provided with English translations, for which Peggy Rockman was a source as well as editor. A senior dancer amongst her people, Peggy Rockman helped choose the site for, and participated in, a major ceremony for a 1993 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
documentary film, Milli Milli. The ceremony, called Wati Kutjarra (Two men) Dreaming, was performed with others including fellow artist Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri
Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri
Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri was an Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region...
.
Peggy Rockman's paintings have been hung in both public and commercial gallery exhibitions, including at the Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment
The Araluen Centre for Arts & Entertainment in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, Australia, is a cultural centre incorporating museums and a theatre....
and the National Gallery of Victoria's Indigenous art exhibition "Paint Up Big". Commercial galleries showing her work have included William Mora Galleries in Melbourne. A work by Peggy Rockman, Mukaki — bush plum, was included in the 2007 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Her paintings are held by the Art Gallery of New Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria.