Virginia Gallarla

Virginia Gallarla is a Tiwi artist born in 1951 at Wurrumiyanga on Bathurst Island in the Tiwi Islands. Her maiden name was Pangiraminni and she attended Catholic primary and high school in Wurrumiyanga. After working at the health centre in her late teens, including a period at the leprosarium in Darwin, she returned to the Tiwi Islands with her husband, raising five children before moving to Pirlangimpi in 1979.

Virginia worked at the health centre in Pirlangimpi until her retirement in 2010. After retiring, she began making baskets at home and then joined the Munupi Art Centre in 2014, where she started painting. Her work depicts seasons, ceremonies, bush foods, bush medicine, insects and ceremonial objects, and it is highly sought after by collectors. Virginia has participated in numerous exhibitions, including the Tarnanthi Festival and the National Emerging Artists Prize, reflecting her evolving practice and cultural storytelling.