Biography

Biography

Wendy Wise is a Wangkatjunka woman, born in 1960 and deceased in 2011. She grew up in the small Wangkatjunka community, about a six-hour drive from Balgo in the northwest of the Australian desert. She is the sister of Milkujung Jewess James, and her mother married the brother of the famous artist Rover Thomas.

During her teenage years, she moved to Balgo (Wirrimanu community), where she married Robert Nanala, whose parents were artists deeply involved in the Warlayirti Artists art center. This community lies on the edge of the Tanami Desert and the Great Sand Desert, 300 km south of Halls Creek. Warlayirti Artists has a well-deserved national and international reputation for its luminous acrylic paintings and original limited edition prints. Towards the end of her life, Wendy Wise worked primarily with Warlayirti Artists, while continuing her practice at the Mulan Community.


Early in her career, Wendy Wise was influenced by the elders in her community as well as the encouragement of Sister Alice Dempsey of the Adult Education Centre. At this time, his paintings depicted figurative subjects, such as coolamons (wooden baskets), digging sticks, tracks, as well as depictions of animals and bush tucker (bush food: wild berries, melons, tomatoes, onions, caterpillars and various plants).

Towards the end of his life, his practice evolved. She adopted pointillism, and her palette was oriented towards desert tones: red, yellow and orange.