Magda Nakamarra Curtis was born in Alice Springs Hospital, and has spent most of her childhood at Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community located 450 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She attended her local school, then Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. Magda continued her studies at Bachelor College before travelling around the Kimberleys in WA. On her travels she stayed at Balgo, where she first started painting when she was 19 years old. Magda is married to Paul Nelson and now lives in Nyirripi. When Magda returned home to her family she began painting with the Warlukurlangu Artists in 2004. Her mother Kelly Napanangka Michaels, who lives in Yuendumu and her Aunty Alice Nampijinpa Henwood Michaels, who lives in Nyirripi also paint with Warlukurlangu Artists and have been painting there since 1987 and 1989 respectively. As a child living in Nyirripi, Magda would often watch her grandmothers and grandfathers paint and listen to them as they told her stories of their country. Her Grandparents have passed away since but her Big Sister Mary Anne Nampijinpa Michaels is like a Grandmother to her. She likes painting her Big Sister’s dreaming, Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa, a rock hole in country belonging to her grandmother. Besides painting Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa, Magda paints her Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) Jajiidi Jukurrpa (Western Quoll Dreaming) and Wardapi Jukurrpa (Goanna Dreaming), Dreamings which relate directly to her land, its features and animals. When not painting Magda loves spending time hunting for goannas and traditional bush foods in the countryside around Nyirripi and Yuendumu.
Magda often depicts the Jukurrpa, Lappi Lappi . The term ‘Lappi Lappi,’ is the name given to a rock hole near Lake Hazlett. about 90km northwest of Lake MacKay in Western Australia. Although the country does not belong to Christine’s skin group, the Napanangka, the rock hole at Lappi Lappi is a permanent source of water, and surrounded by country rich in bush tucker. In the time of the Jukurrpa (Dreamtime,) a rainbow serpent, called the ‘warnayarra,’made Lappi Lappi it’s home, and it travelled underground between the various rock holes. One day, women were gathered at the rock hole with their children, singing and dancing, when they disturbed the ‘warnayarra,’ and it travelled silently towards them under the water. When it reached the edge of the rock hole, it rose out of the water, and ate them all.
