Dennis Nelson was born in Alice Springs in 1962. He is the son of Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, one of the founders of the desert painting movement, and his second wife Gladys (Yawitji) Napanangka, who was among the first group of women at Papunya in the early 1980s to paint for Papunya Tula Artists. Dennis identifies with his mother’s Warlpiri language group rather than Johnny’s (Pintupi). Gladys had four children from her previous marriage, and Johnny had two daughters Narlie and Maggie from his. Together Gladys and Johnny had six more children: Dennis, Mike, and four daughters, Candy, Minnie, Emma and another who passed away.

Dennis attended school in Papunya and remembers going “after school or smoko time” to the Old Town Hall building alongside the school classrooms to watch the painters at work. He says his father taught him to paint: “Use brush – cut 'im – he learn me. When I’m a little boy he sat me down in the gallery”. Dennis’ paintings are strongly reminiscent of his famous father’s early works: “I carry on his style. I know.”

Johnny also taught him his stories: the Kalipinypa Water Dreaming with “lots of birds playing round after the rain”; the “Death Spirit [that] comes from under ground in the middle of the desert” and Tjikari where the “Men Dreaming [are] still there now”. Dennis said his father took him and his brothers and sisters to these places – to Kalipinypa via the shortcut through Nyirripi and to Tjikari in the middle of the desert.

In the school holidays Johnny’s family went hunting for bush tucker, goanna and kangaroo and later “we used to drive round everywhere – Mt Liebig, Kintore, Kiwirrkura – everywhere.” For ten years Dennis worked in the Papunya School and occasionally painted for Papunya Tula Artists in the early 1990s, then for Warumpi Arts before its closure in 2004. He now paints for the Papunya Tjupi Art Centre in Papunya. He lives with his wife Rachel Napaltjarri at Five Mile Outstation.

Writers:

Papunya Tjupi Arts

Date written:

2009

Last updated:

2011