Artist

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Betty Muffler

Betty Muffler

Betty Muffler is a highly respected Pitjantjatjara Yankunyjatjara artist and a revered ngangkari, a traditional Anangu healer. Embracing a subtle monochromatic palette, Muffler creates sublime and sophisticated paintings evoking landscapes that reveal the artist’s reverence for her Country, her ngangkari spirit and her people.

Born in 1944 near Watarru, close to the border of South and Western Australia, Muffler survived the British atomic testing conducted at Maralinga and Emu Junction where many of her close family were displaced or died from the catastrophic aftereffects. Witnessing the devastating effect this event had on her family and their ancestral Country left a lifelong impact on Muffler that she addresses through her ngangkari practice and the recurring depiction of healing sites in her paintings titled ‘Ngangkari Ngura’ (Healing Country).

Widely celebrated and revered for her contemporary practice, Muffler was awarded the Emerging Artist Award at the 34th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) presented by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin in 2017 at the esteemed age of 73. She has since been recognised as a NATSIAA finalist in 2018, 2020 and 2022 and has been featured in Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2015, 2017, and 2020.

In 2020 Muffler’s celebrated work Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country) 2020 was published on the cover of Vogue Australia’s September Issue; the first-time fine art was published on the cover of the eminent magazine in its 60-year history.

In 2021, Muffler presented new work with collaborating artist Maringka Burton at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, as part of The National 2021: New Australian Art and the two artists were announced as finalists for the 2021 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Muffler was also recognised for her solo work in as a finalist in the 2021 Hadley’s Art Prize in Hobart, Tasmania and for the 2021 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize at the Bendigo Art Gallery in Victoria. 

In 2022 Muffler was awarded the coveted General Painting Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards presented at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

In the same year Muffler was named a finalist in the 2022 Wynne Prize and presented the largest work of her career, a five-meter canvas commissioned for ACCA’s Like a Wheel That Turns: The 2022 Macfarlane Commissions exhibition in Melbourne.

In 2023 Muffler’s work is to be included in two major group exhibitions, Ngura Pulka – Epic Country at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and at the 14th Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, South Korea, and will exhibit alongside Maringka Burton in Minyma Ngali Ngangkari Kutjara - We Two Women Are Healers at Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne. 

From 2023 – 2024 Betty Muffler’s epic 5 meter long painting, Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country), will be exhibited in the 2023 NGV Triennial, the third iteration of the National Gallery of Victoria’s major international contemporary art survey including over 100 artists from over 30 countries.

© The Artist, Iwantja Arts and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne 2023

For an extended CV, please contact Alcaston Gallery at art@alcastongallery.com.au

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