Janet Long Nakamarra

Janet Long Nakamarra Paintings

Quick Facts

  • Date of Birth: 1960

  • Place of Birth: Anningie Station, near Willowra Community, Central Australia

  • Language Group: Warlpiri

  • Country: Warntapari, Tanami Desert region, Northern Territory

  • Style of Art: A blend of traditional dot work and contemporary, naive-style painting

  • Notable Family: Daughter of artist Nora Long Nakamarra; sister to Doreen Dickson Nakamarra; half-sister to artist Malcolm Maloney Jagamarra

  • Themes: Ngapa (Water Dreaming), Malju Dreaming (Dry Waterholes), Women's Ceremonies

Janet Long Nakamarra is a Warlpiri artist from Willowra in Central Australia, whose aboriginal paintings carry forward the Water Dreaming stories of her Country alongside a life spent working as a linguist and educator within her community. Her paintings blend traditional dot work with a more naive, contemporary style, giving her Dreaming stories a distinctive visual voice.

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Early Life and Artistic Beginnings

Janet was born in 1960 at Anningie Station, on her family's traditional homelands of Warntapari, near the Willowra Community. She grew up living a traditional lifestyle alongside her family, and it was her aunts, May and Molly Napurrula, who first introduced her to art, teaching her the traditional body paint designs associated with her family's Warntapari Dreaming.

Janet comes from a family with strong ties to painting: she is the daughter of fellow artist Nora Long Nakamarra, sister to Doreen Dickson Nakamarra, and half-sister to the well-known artist Malcolm Maloney Jagamarra. It was Malcolm who later taught her how to work with acrylic paint on canvas, after noticing her growing interest in painting.

Learning to Paint

Janet Long Nakamarra began painting in 1989, working on small boards once the Willowra community store started stocking art supplies for local artists. She has described sitting with her mother and two aunties as they showed her how to paint her own dreamings and stories, a foundation that, combined with her half-brother Malcolm's guidance on acrylic technique, set the direction for her aboriginal painting career.

In 2003, following a period of apprenticeship and women's law, Janet was given permission by Warlpiri elders to paint the stories of Ngapa, the Water Dreaming associated with her Country. These paintings depict the underground water flow beneath Warntapari, a significant ceremonial site for her people.

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Themes and Style

Janet’s artwork on Ngapa (Water Dreaming) and Malju Dreaming (Dry Waterholes), alongside imagery connected to Women's Ceremonies, bush tucker, and traditional body paint design. Her visual style blends traditional dot work with a more naive, abstract sensibility, and her palette ranges from deep, mysterious charcoal greys through to the warmer, natural tones of her bush fruit series. Many of her paintings carry fine, layered detail that builds into a larger, cohesive story across the canvas.

Legacy

Before establishing herself as a painter, Janet built a significant career as a linguist and educator. After leaving school, she worked producing books in the Warlpiri language, eventually training through Batchelor College and going on to teach as a literacy worker at Willowra School for over a decade. Alongside two other women in her community, she helped produce Warlpiri Women's Voices, a bilingual book translated into both Warlpiri and English, travelling to Sydney for its launch.

Her skill as a linguist and translator led to broader recognition beyond Willowra. When author Vivien Johnson began researching her book Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary in the early 1990s, it was Janet she approached to help gather and translate information from the Willowra artists. Janet also worked as an interpreter for community elders during land claim proceedings.

Janet Long Nakamarra's work reflects a rare combination: a painter carrying forward her family's Dreaming stories, and a linguist and educator who has spent decades helping preserve and translate Warlpiri language and knowledge for her community and beyond. That dual contribution, as both artist and cultural translator, has shaped a body of work that carries genuine depth well beyond the canvas itself.

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