Niningka was born in the bush in 1945 at a place north of Areyonga. Her parents had previously come to live at Ernabella but were on holiday on foot, as people would do every year still at that time. As a baby she came to Ernabella and grew up here, accompanying her family on annual holidays to many places such as Angus Downs, Curtin Springs and Imanpa.
After school she worked at the Ernabella Mission craft room, where Winifred Hilliard taught her how to spin sheep’s wool and weave rugs. She moved to Amata as a young woman and worked in the clinic before settling in Kalka where she married and had one son.
She moved then to nearby Kalka where she developed her skills in batik, and went on to be one of the supervisors for the Kalka women’s centre. It was around the same time, in 1997, that Niningka was introduced to coiled basketry.
Niningka is also an expert woodcarver, who made punu carvings for Maruku Arts at Uluru. She often decorates her baskets with these small figurative carvings, or other applied decorations like emu feathers, ininti seeds, and overstitched or embroidered designs, as well as brightly coloured wool/raffia patterns woven into her baskets. Her talents as a sculptor are also apparent in the range of forms she creates from baskets, hats, sandals, cups, saucepans, birds and even small motor cars.
Niningka made the first life-sized grass figure for the Tjanpi Manguri Weaving exhibition in 2000 that anticipated the Tjanpi Desert Weavers’ move into figurative sculpture-making. This saw them win the NATSIAAs with their tjanpi Toyota sculpture. Niningka is highly regarded for her innovative creativity.
When Niningka’s husband sadly passed away, she came back to Ernabella to be at home and to spend time with her older sister, Pantjiti Lionel. She now works at the Ernabella art centre again, painting, making tjanpi, punu, mukata (beanies) and ceramics.
Niningka has been concentrating on her painting at the art centre since 2009. This has seen her Highly Commended in the painting section of the 2010 NATSIAAS and in 2011 she had her first solo exhibition, at Melbourne’s Alcaston Gallery.
Niningka has worked with tjanpi desert weavers on recent collaborations which have been exhibited at the MCA in Sydney, the Art Gallery of South Australia and Tarrawarra 2014 Biennale.
In 2015 Niningka experimented for the first time using resin, incorporating resin sculptures into contemporary jewellery. Her contemporary jewellery work has been exhibited at JamFactory, Adelaide, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art and Whistlewood, Victoria.
In 2014 and 2015 she had solo exhibitions at Tunbridge Gallery, WA. In 2016 Niningka along with five other Ernabella women created a collaborative tjanpi work that was shortlisted for the NATSIAAs.
