Mary Anne Nampinjinpa Michaels

Mary Anne Nampijinpa Michaels was born in 1935, in the bush near Lappi Lappi Rock, an area located on Mount Doreen Station, an extensive cattle breeding station in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Mary Anne received a traditional Aboriginal education, going bush with her parents and learning all about her country, its creation stories, its features, and the flora and fauna that inhabited the land.

Mary Anne painted with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation from 2005. Warlukurlangu Artists was an Aboriginal-owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and had been providing the residents of Nyirripi with materials to paint since 2005.

Mary Anne painted her father’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings relating directly to Lappi Lappi, her land, its features, and the plants and animals that inhabited it. These stories were passed down to her by her father and mother, and their parents before them, for millennia.

Her work was included in numerous exhibitions of Aboriginal art both nationally and internationally. When she was not painting or telling her stories to her grandchildren, Mary Anne still enjoyed hunting for goanna.