Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi

Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi

Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi (born in 1967) is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist born in the Papunya community, she followed in her father Legendary artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's footsteps and became an internationally respected painter. Examples of her work are held in many gallery collections in Australia and elsewhere, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Flinders University Art Museum, the Kelton Foundation Collection, the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Royal Collection.

When she was 16 In 1985, Gabriella won the Alice Springs Art Award.

Throughout her life Gabriella has been exhibiting work in Australia and overseas. In 1991 Gabriella received a Professional Development Grant from the Aboriginal Arts Unit of the Australia Council for the Arts, which helped her to develop her unique style showing dotted landscapes featuring elements such as bush foods familiar to her people. As her work was shown at higher profile galleries, collectors became interested in her work.

As indigenous art from Australia gained more recognition, Gabriella talent was recognised in a number of international shows. In 2006, she was one of the 33 artists showing at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which was the first major US presentation of art by indigenous women in Australia. In 2010 Gabriella showed work in the Down Under Gallery in Munich, Germany.

In 2008 Gabriella work found an international audience when celebrity gardener Jamie Durie won the Gold Medal in the Chelsea Flower Show. When HRH Queen Elizabeth gave Durie the prize she was presented with an original work by the artist, which now hangs in the royal collection alongside that of her father.

At the 2014 Melbourne festival her work was used to decorate a tram as part of a major public art project called Melbourne Art Trams.

At Vivid Sydney 2016, Gabriella 's work was selected by director of the "Lighting of the Sails" installation, meaning her images were projected onto the Sydney Opera House.

Her sister, Michelle Possum Nungurrayi is also a renowned artist. They exhibited together in 2017 at the Japingka gallery in Perth in 2017.

Since the early 2000s, Gabriella has lived near to Melbourne with her family. The sale of her father's piece "Warlugulong" earned her significant resale royalty, which was seen as a fitting change made possible by the Australian resale royalty right movement, which sought to prevent financial exploitation of indigenous artists. Danny Ramzan of the Australian hip hop group Yung Warriors is Nungurrayi's son. 

Selected Exhibitions

  •     1987 exhibition in Brisbane with her father Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and sister Michelle Possum
  • 1988 Aboriginal 'Dot' Painting, Melbourne  
  • 1992 Washington DC, U.S.A. 1992 Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney
  • 1993 Berne, Switzerland
  • 1998 'Sztuka Aborygenow - (Art of the Aborigines)', Warsaw, Poland
  • 1999 Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
  • 1999 Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne
  • 2000 United Nations, New York
  • 2001 Mia Mia Gallery, Melbourne.
  • 2009 Solo Exhibition, Kate Owen Gallery, Rozelle, Sydney

Collections:

  • National Gallery of Australia (Canberra)
  • Museum Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
  • Flinders University Art museum Adelaide
  • Holmes A Court Collection,
  • Kelton Foundation Collection, USA
  • Winterthur Collection, Switzerland and many others.

Awards

  • 1991, Professional Development Grant, from the Aboriginal Arts Unit of the Australia

    Council for the  Arts.
  • 1993 Nungurrayi Alice Springs Art Prize Record Cover for 'Coloured Stone'