The Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures Collaborative Curation Lab and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, in conjunction with Papunya Tula Artists present:  

 MANTUA NANGALA & SALLY ROWE NAKAMARRA  

in conversation with Nici Cumpston OAM (Director, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection) and Henry Skerritt (Assistant Professor, UVA Department of Art). 

 2pm Tuesday February 17, 2026 

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 

400 Worrell Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22911  

Kluge-Ruhe is honored to host two leading women painters from Australia’s remote Western Desert. Mantua Nangala and Sally Rowe Nakamarra are contemporary artists and leading members of Papunya Tula Artists, the oldest Indigenous-owned arts organization in Australia. Join them for a rich discussion of their art, as well as the role of contemporary art in promoting economic empowerment, community health, land management, and political representation. Their visit coincides with the opening of the major touring exhibition Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu at the Grey Museum of Art in New York. In this intimate conversation, Nangala and Nakamarra will reflect on their personal experiences working with museums across the globe to present their culture to the world.  

This event is free, but REGISTRATION is required.  

Mantua Nangala is one of the most senior women currently working at Papunya Tula Artists. Her family was displaced from their Country during her childhood, and they moved between settlements across Western Australia for many years. In 1964 they were forcibly settled on the government reserve of Papunya. In 1981, following the establishment of the Kintore and Kiwirrkura communities, Mantua relocated to Walungurru (Kintore), later settling in Kiwirrkura in Western Australia, the nearest community to her Pintupi homelands. Mantua began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1998, quickly developing a distinctive style to express her intimate connection to Country and impart the respective histories and narratives of place. Her work has been featured in major exhibitions throughout Australia, including the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial held at the National Gallery of Australia in 2022. 

Sally Rowe Nakamarra was born in 1986 in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Sally hails from a prestigious artistic lineage: her parents, Bundi Rowe Tjupurrula, and Nancy Young Napanangka, were both artists for Papunya Tula, and Sally learned to paint watching her grandmother, the pioneering artist Wintjiya Napaltjarri. Sally attended school in Walungurru (Kintore) and began painting for Papunya Tula around 2022. Using the restrained palette of Wintjiya, Sally paints the site of Pinari and its associated Tjukurrpa (ancestral narratives), which she has custodial rights to through her grandmother. In recent years, Sally has emerged as one of the most exciting new artists at Papunya Tula, exhibiting across Australia, Asia and the United States.