Estelle
Munkanome

Estelle Munkanome began working with the Ngaruwanajirri Art Centre, Bathurst Island, in 1996. Her early works with natural ochres were very delicate but her later paintings became bolder in line, colour and dot. The structure and ideas in Estelle`s paintings are often reflected in her batiks on silk, using both Naphthol dyes and Drimarine K dyes.

Included in numerous interstate group exhibitions with Lorna Kantilla and Alfonso Puautjimi, a notable exhibition for Estelle was the Fabulous Top End Fabrics - Exhibition of Textiles from the Tiwi Islands exhibition, Territory Craft, Darwin, 2008. In 2010 she featured in”Arampini” Artists from the Tiwi Islands at the National Art School Gallery, Darlinghurst Sydney.

More recently she was in the annual Ngaruwanajirri show in Darwin and after inclusion in “Tiwi” at the National Gallery of Victoria Estelle was also selected for the 2021 “Tarnathi” Festival of Contemporary Art held at the Art Gallery of South Australia. 

Estelle’s art is held in the National Gallery of Victoria, Charles Darwin University Art Collection, Batchelor Institute of Tertiary Education Art Collection, Artbank Collection, Newcastle University NSW, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Lam Collection, San Antonio Art Museum, Texas USA and Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Estelle passed away in 2025. As a significant artist of Ngaruwanajirri we include her here with respect.