Western Aranda artist Vanessa Inkamala has used memory, language and a recycled road sign to show change on Country in her finalist work for the Telstra General Painting Award at the 2026 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA).
Now in its 43rd year, Telstra NATSIAA brings together First Nations artists from across the country, with 64 works selected from 221 entries for this year's exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Ms Inkamala is based in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and works from Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre.
Her finalist work, Arrkurla Nukala / Lyaarta Ntema, is made on a recycled road sign with gesso primer, gouache watercolour paint, house paint and cold wax medium.
The title means "before" and "after/today" in Western Aranda, and reflects the way visits to her homeland, Tjoritja / the West MacDonnell Ranges, have changed over her lifetime.
Ms Inkamala told National Indigenous Times being named a finalist for the first time made her proud.
"I feel happy, this is my first time and I feel proud," Ms Inkamala said.
"I've never seen the Telstra Award."
The work shows a landscape remembered before bitumen roads and mobile phones became part of visiting Country.
Ms Inkamala said the painting was based on memory and language.
"Well, I painted that landscape about my Country, western Tjoritja, the Western MacDonnell Ranges, and that was with my memory, how I remembered it before," Ms Inkamala said.
"I thought I might as well call this Arrkurla Nukala, before, and Lyaarta Ntema, after, and I put it in my language as well, in Aranda."
"Before there was no bitumen and no phone. Today we've got bitumen road and everyone who visits the Country takes phone and camera."
Ms Inkamala comes from a family with a strong painting history.
Her great-uncle was renowned Western Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira, her aunt was the late artist Ivy Pareroultja, and her brother Reinhold Inkamala is also a landscape painter.
Ms Inkamala said her own connection to painting began through family.
"I learnt painting from my father," she said. "I used to watch him painting with Oscar Namatjira.
"I used to watch them after school at Hermannsburg, I was maybe 13. I used to clean the brush or get him water."
The painting continues the Hermannsburg watercolour tradition while using a road sign to reflect changing movement through Country.
Ms Inkamala said she hoped audiences would connect with the place shown in the work.
"I'm happy people will see my painting," Ms Inkamala said.
"They might see the Western MacDonnell Ranges and they might think, 'Oh, sometime we might go and visit that Country'."
The 2026 Telstra NATSIAA exhibition opened at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory on June 27.
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on August 7, with artists sharing in a total prize pool of $190,000, including the $100,000 Telstra Art Award.
