Mary Napangardi Brown
Mary Napangardi Brown was born in a bush camp at Mount Doreen, an extensive cattle breeding station just south-west of Yuendumu.
As a young girl, Mary lived a traditional lifestyle, learning about gathering bush tucker, bush medicine, making necklaces for ceremonies, and Aboriginal law.
While Mary was still young, her family was picked up by a white man and moved to Yuendumu. She lived there for some time with her family and later with her husband and fellow artist, Mick “Pegleg” Jampijinpa Brown (dec.).
Mary and Mick later moved to Mount Liebig and then to Nyirripi. Mary paints her Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings that relate to her land, its features, and the plants and animals that live there. These stories were passed down to her by her father and his father’s father for millennia.