Maywokka (Mayiwalku) Chapman wins major art prize
Senior Manyjilyjarra artist Maywokka Chapman (Mayiwalku) of Spinifex Hill Studio and Martumili Artists has won the major prize at The Jury Art Prize 2026 at Courthouse Gallery+Studio in Port Hedland in Western Australia.
Her winning work, Ngurra (Home Country, Camp), is a painting of the desert Country she walked as a child: a portrait of home by an artist who carries one of the last living memories of the pujiman (nomadic desert dweller) way of life.
Painted in acrylic on canvas, Ngurra (Home Country, Camp) maps Maywokka’s ngurra (home Country, camp) in the Manyjilyjarra region of the central Great Sandy Desert from above, tracing tali (sandhills), warta (vegetation) and the many life-sustaining water sources she knows both through lived experience and through jukurrpa narratives passed down across generations. This is not a landscape observed from a distance. It is Country remembered on foot.
The judging panel praised the work’s “exceptional conceptual strength and technical confidence”, describing it as “both a portrait of the artist and a powerful expression of an enduring matrilineal lineage”.
“Bold, vibrant and rich with meaning, it presents a unique gestural portrait of Country that extends beyond the boundaries of the canvas. The work feels simultaneously intimate and expansive, with courageous, embodied marks that challenge conventional approaches to landscape painting,” the judges said.
“As a senior artist and cultural knowledge holder, the artist carries the responsibility of preserving and sharing stories, with every mark embodying a connection to ancestry, deep time and Country.”
Maywokka was born at Ngarurr soak in the 1940s and spent her childhood and young adulthood travelling her parents’ Country through the areas surrounding Punmu, Karlamilyi River and Kunawarritji. Her family was among the last to leave the desert, walking into Balfour Downs Station after a prolonged drought.
A remarkable family of artists
Maywokka is the eldest of a remarkable family of artists, including her sisters Nancy Nyanjilpayi Chapman and Mulyatingki Marney, and her daughter Doreen Chapman: winner of the Telstra Art Award at the 2024 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Across two generations, the family has helped carry Martu stories from the Great Sandy Desert to audiences across Australia and beyond. This win recognises Maywokka on her own doorstep, with the Pilbara art prize honouring a lifetime of knowledge, memory and practice.
“We are immensely proud of Maywokka, and this recognition is so richly deserved. Every canvas she paints carries a depth of knowledge and care for her Country, and we are privileged to workalongside her as she shares her story,” Gabrielle Howlett, Aboriginal and Islander Partnerships Manager, said.
Ngurra (Home Country, Camp) is currently exhibited at the Courthouse Gallery+Studio. The Jury Art Prize 2026 exhibition continues until 21 August 2026.
About Spinifex Hill Studio
Spinifex Hill Studio is the only Aboriginal art collective in the Hedland area and one of the most significant art centres in Western Australia.
Art centres like Spinifex Hill Studio play a pivotal role in the lives of Aboriginal and Islander communities: they are places of belonging, safe spaces for self-expression, environments for healing, and sites of generational exchange and learning.
Home to more than 100 artists from eight language groups on Kariyarra Country, the studio was founded in 2008 as a community-led initiative. Its artists have been finalists and winners in the Telstra NATSIAA, the Paddington Art Prize, the Cossack Art Awards, and the Hedland Art Awards, with works held in national and international collections
