Biddy Rockman Napaljarri

Biddy Rockman Napaljarri is a Walpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from the Western Desert region.{{cite book|last=Birnberg|first=Margo|author2=Janusz Kreczmanski|title=Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region|publisher=J.B. Publishing|location=Marleston, South Australia|year=2004|page=202|isbn=1-876622-47-4}} Biddy Rockman Napaljarri should not be confused with artist Biddy Napaljarri White (born 1952).{{cite web|url=http://auskadi.mjzhosting.org/bnwhite.html |title=Biddy Napaljarri White |year=2007 |publisher=auskadi gallery – 'arte de ahi' |accessdate=2 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727090428/http://auskadi.mjzhosting.org/bnwhite.html |archivedate=27 July 2011 }}

'Napaljarri' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans.{{cite web|url=http://www.clc.org.au/People_Culture/kinship/kinship.html|title=Kinship and skin names|work=People and culture|publisher=Central Land Council|accessdate=23 October 2009|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091024102529/http://www.clc.org.au/People_Culture/kinship/kinship.html|archivedate=24 October 2009|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|last=De Brabander|first=Dallas|title=Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia|editor=David Horton|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies|location=Canberra|year=1994|volume=2|page=977|chapter=Sections|isbn=978-0-85575-234-7}} Thus 'Biddy Rockman' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.

Biddy was born circa 1940 in the area of Mongrel Downs station in Western Australia,{{cite web|url=http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/5438|title=Biddy Napaljarri Rockman|year=2007|work=Dictionary of Australian Artists Online|accessdate=2 July 2009}} The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous Australians operate using a different conception of time, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events.{{cite book|last=Birnberg|first=Margo|author2=Janusz Kreczmanski|title=Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region|publisher=J.B. Publishing|pages=10–12|location=Marleston, South Australia|year=2004|isbn=1-876622-47-4}} Mongrel Downs station was renamed Tanami Downs at the time of it being returned to Indigenous ownership in the 1990s. The area lies in the north-west of the Northern Territory, on the Western Australian border.{{cite journal|last=Central Land Council|date=March 1993|title="Mongrel" Station has New Future: Tanami Downs Land Claim|journal=Land Rights News|volume=2|issue=23|url=http://www.clc.org.au/Ourland/LRN_stories/Mangkururrpa.html|access-date=13 January 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027165353/http://www.clc.org.au/Ourland/LRN_stories/Mangkururrpa.html|archive-date=27 October 2010|url-status=dead}}

Biddy was one of six children of Milkila Jungarayi, and her siblings include artists Mona Rockman Napaljarri and Peggy Rockman Napaljarri.{{cite book|last=Olney|first=Justice|title=Tanami Downs Land Claim: Findings, Recommendation|publisher=Aboriginal Land Commissioner|location=Melbourne|date=30 March 1992|series=Reports of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner|volume=Report No. 42|url=http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/annualreports/aboriginal_land_comm_reports/tanami_downs/Documents/42.PDF|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110329073724/http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/annualreports/aboriginal_land_comm_reports/tanami_downs/Documents/42.PDF|archivedate=29 March 2011}} Biddy Rockman is one of the traditional owners recognised in the Tanami Downs land claim, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976. By 2004 she was living in Katherine, Northern Territory.

Contemporary Indigenous art of the western desert began when Indigenous men at Papunya began painting in 1971, assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon.{{cite book|last=Bardon|first=Geoffrey|author2=James Bardon|title=Papunya – A place made after the story: The beginnings of the Western Desert painting movement|publisher=Miegunyah Press|location=University of Melbourne|year=2006}} Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983.{{cite journal|last=Dussart|first=Francoise|year=2006|title=Canvassing identities: reflecting on the acrylic art movement in an Australian Aboriginal settlement|journal=Aboriginal History|volume=30|pages=156–168}} By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally.{{cite book|author1-link=Howard Morphy|last=Morphy|first=Howard|title=Aboriginal Art|publisher=Phaidon|location=London|year=1999|pages=261–316}} The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting.{{cite journal|last=Strocchi|first=Marina|year=2006|title=Minyma Tjukurrpa: Kintore / Haasts Bluff Canvas Project: Dancing women to famous painters|journal=Artlink|volume=26|issue=4}} However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.

Biddy Rockman began painting at Lajamanu, Northern Territory, in the central desert, west of Tennant Creek, in 1986. Western Desert artists such as Biddy will frequently paint particular 'dreamings', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights.{{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Vivien|title=Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary|chapter=Introduction|publisher=Craftsman House|location=Roseville East, NSW|pages=7–12|year=1994}} Johnson's biographical survey of artists in 1994 identified her country as Jarlawangu, and that she painted Ngatijirri (budgerigar) and Warna dreamings,{{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Vivien|title=Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary|publisher=Craftsman House|page=174|location=Roseville East, NSW|year=1994}} stories that belong to Napaljarri and Nungarrayi women.

Works by Biddy Rockman are held by major institutions, including the National Gallery of Victoria. They are also represented in major private collections, such as Nangara (also known as the Ebes Collection).{{cite web|url=http://www.nangara.com/collection/artists.htm|title=The artists|publisher=Nangara: the Australian Aboriginal art exhibition|accessdate=2 July 2009|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719121039/http://www.nangara.com/collection/artists.htm|archivedate=19 July 2008}}

• National Gallery of Victoria
• Ebes Collection

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110707164219/http://www.artaborigene.com/fr/html/biddy.htm Example of work by Biddy Rockman Napaljarri]

{{Central and Western Desert artists}}

{{Authority control}}

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Category:1940s births

Category:Living people

Category:Australian Aboriginal artists

Category:20th-century Australian painters

Category:21st-century Australian women artists

Category:21st-century Australian artists

Category:Warlpiri people

Category:Artists from the Northern Territory

Category:20th-century Australian women painters

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)