https://nmwa.org/blog/from-the-collection/5-fast-facts-janet-nala-forrester

5 Fast Facts: Janet Nala Forrester

Blog Category: From the Collection

A very close-up detail shot of a painting featuring tiny dots arranged to form vary shades of blue circles outlined in white. Layered blue dots, appearing almost three-dimensional against a black background, are in focus in the foreground and the blue background is blurred.

March 14, 2018

Impress your friends with five fast facts about artist Janet Nala Forrester (b. ca. 1954), whose work is on view in NMWA’s collection galleries.

Tiny dots in white and various, rich shades of blue arranged to form circles. The circles are arranged into larger, concentric, white scallop-edged blue circles with a white dotted line going down the center. — Janet Nala Forrester, *Milky Way Dreaming*, 1998; Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 34 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Ann Shumelda Okerson and James J. O’Donnell; © Estate of Janet Nala Forrester, Licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency, Ltd. Photo by Lee Stalsworth

1. Australia Dreamin’

Janet Nala Forrester, like many other Australian Aboriginal artists, depicts Dreamings, or creation stories. As these tales are inherited and considered sacred, artists protect specifics by working in an abstract style.

2. Humble Beginnings

Australian Indigenous art dates back more than 30,000 years. Early forms of expression included rock, bark, and body painting and ephemeral ground drawing. In the 1970s, Aboriginal men started using modern art materials to record ancient stories in tangible, saleable forms. Many women, including Janet Nala Forrester, began painting in the 1980s.

3. In the Stars

Forrester frequently represents the Milky Way in her paintings. Australian Aboriginal people believe that the galaxy is home to ancestral spirits and that each star within it represents a deceased person or animal.

4. Perspective Shifts

Forrester’s Milky Way Dreaming (1998) invites viewers to imagine gazing up at the stars. In Yam Story ’96 (1996), Emily Kame Kngwarreye (ca. 1910–1996) leads viewers deep underground, where we see intertwined, infinite, root bundles. Pansy Napangati (b. ca. 1948) provides audiences with aerial views of the land.

5. Methods to Motifs

In addition to the Milky Way, Forrester’s repeating symbols include serpents, honey ants, bush bananas, goannas (carnivorous lizards that are close relatives of Komodo Dragons), and witchetty-mades (large white larvae of moths historically consumed by Indigenous Australians due to their high protein content).

—Adrienne L. Gayoso is the senior educator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Sep 08, 2019

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Sugar Bag Dreaming”

Ozbid Auctions

Sold: AUD1,200

Apr 26, 2020

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Untitled”

Ozbid Auctions

Sold: AUD550

Oct 24, 2021

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Sugar Bag Dreaming”

Ozbid Auctions

Sold: AUD800

Nov 28, 2021

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Sugar Bag Dreaming”

Ozbid Auctions

Sold: AUD800

Oct 11, 2022

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Sugar Bag Dreaming”

Ozbid Auctions

Passed

Jul 31, 2022

JANET FORRESTER NGALA “Sugarbag Dreaming”

Ozbid Auctions

Sold: AUD700

Jul 29, 2022

Janet Forrester Ngala, 1936-, Sugar Bag Dreaming, Acrylic on canvas, 34 1/2 x 50 3/4 in. (87.63 x 128.91 cm.)

Abell Auction

Sold: $2,750

Jul 29, 2022

Janet Forrester Ngala, 1936-, Bush Banana Dreaming, Acrylic on linen, 51 1/2 x 69 1/2 in. (130.81 x 176.53 cm.)

Abell Auction

Sold: $1,800

Jul 29, 2022

Janet Forrester Ngala, 1936-, Snake and Milky Way Dreaming, Acrylic on linen, 67 x 53 in. (170.18 x 134.62 cm.)

Abell Auction

Sold: $1,000

Jul 29, 2022

Janet Forrester Ngala, 1936-, Bush Banana (Alangwe) Dreaming, Natural earth pigments on canvas, 22 3/4 x 31 1/4 in. (57.79 x 79.38 cm.)

Abell Auction

Sold: $350

December 13, 2010