Linda Syddick Napaltjarri

Linda Syddick Napaltjarri (born c. 1937) is one of many Western Desert women who took up painting in the early 1990’s, as part of the contemporary Indigenous Australian art movement. Her work includes a distinctive fusion of Christian and Aboriginal traditional themes and symbols (Christian Cross).

She has been a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards four times and the Blake Prize (a religious art competition) at least three times. Her works are held by numerous galleries around Australia and worldwide. Linda Syddick was the subject of a portrait painted by Robert Hannaford, which was a 1992 finalist in Australia’s premiere portrait competition, the Archibald Prize.

Linda has formed a distinctive style that combines her Christian beliefs and traditional Aboriginal Dreamtime stories. Her paintings include the themes of “Sulky Man” and “Kangaroo Man” which depict both mythological stories and actual events of traditional life in the desert. One style in particular that Linda is popularly known for painting depicts a windmill, which her family came upon at the time they walked out of the desert, and believed was some kind of monster.