BORN: c 1946
REGION: PAPUNYA- NORTHERN TERRITORY
LANGUAGE GROUP: WARLPIRI
View Michael’s artwork here
Born at Pikilyi, west of Yuendumu, of Warlpiri parents, Michael grew up ‘without clothes’, and recalls hiding in fear, upon his first sight of a white man at Mt Doreen Station. His family lived in Alice Springs, Haasts Bluff, then in Yuendumu where Michael went to school. At the age of thirteen, he went through the first rites of initiation.
His parents were both Walpiri and his father was an important “Medicine Man” in the Yuendumu community.
In the earlier years, from 1962, Michael worked as a buffalo shooter on the East and South Alligator River plains and then as a truck driver and cattle drover. He moved to Papunya in 1972. By 1976, he was living in Papunya, working in the government store and later for the Council.
Michael became well educated and a qualified JP who sat on the magistrates’ bench in court hearings at Papunya. In 1998 he achieved prominence when his design was used for a mosaic in front of the new Parliament Housein Canberra. Michael is known for his depictions of several Dreamings in his paintings. Since 2000, he has changed his style and palette of colours but still keeps to the canons of Walpiri mythology. Michael lives and works in Papunya. Michael paints Possum, Snake, Two Kangaroos, Flying Ant, and Yam Dreamings for the area around Pikilyi, Mawitji and Warpurtali (Mt Singleton).
He first painted for Papunya Tula Artists under his own name in October 1983.
Michael Nelson is the custodian of numerous traditional stories, which have been passed down to him mainly from his father’s side.
Such stories are epic narratives and hold knowledge of laws and customs. Association comes through kinship and ceremonial involvement. MNJ’s new expressionist designs are ‘coded’ versions of these narratives. Sprinkles of paint over his ‘logos’ often represent the scattered feathers in ground painting designs.
The granite mosaic pavement in the open forecourt of the new Parliament House in Canberra was designed by Michael Nelson Tjakamarra. It represents our ancient continent and our oldest civilisation.