Topsy Gibson Napaltjarri

Topsy Gibson Napaltjarri (born c. 1950), also known as Tjayika or Tjanika, is a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region.

Topsy Gibson was the first child of Papalya Nangala and Waku Tjungurrayi, born circa 1950 at Wirrulnga, near Kiwirrkurra Community, Western Australia.

The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous Australians operate using a different conception of time, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events.

[1] 'Napaljarri' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people.

In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.