Joy Napangardi Michaels
Joy Napangardi Michaels
Aboriginal Warlpiri Woman
Joy Napangardi Michaels was born in 1991 in Alice Springs Hospital, and grew up in Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community located 440 km from Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She was raised by her grandmother Alice Nampijinpa Henwood Michaels, a well-known Warlukurlangu artist. Joy has one sister, Simone Napangardi Morton who also paints for the Art Centre. Joy has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2012. She paints her Grandmother’s Jukurrpa, Dreamings which have been passed down over the generations for millennia and relate directly to the land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. Joy paints Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa, a rock hole near Lake Hazlett. When Joy is not painting or looking after her daughter she likes to go hunting with family members.