George Tjungurrayi

Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs. Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney (label verso). 

John Kaldor, Sydney, acquired from the above

Bonhams, Sydney, Aboriginal Art, November 21 2011, lot 33, consigned by the above

Private collection, Sydney, acquired from the above. 

This painting is sold with a copy of the original Papunya Tula documentation which reads in part:

"This painting depicts designs associated with the claypan site of Kirrimalunya, north of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). In mythological times a large group of Tingari Men came from the east and campbed at this site before travelling to Lake Mackay. Since events associated the Tingari Cycle are of a secret nature no further detail was given."

Cf. Hetti Perkins and Hannah Fink (eds.), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Sydney, 2000, p. 121. For another example of the same size and with a similar palette painted the following year in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia see Franchesca Cubillo and Wally Caruana Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Collection Highlights National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2010, p.65

With regard to the National Gallery of Australia’s example Stephen Gilchrist writes,

"Tjungurrayi’s exacting optical paintings represent the sacred Pintupi Country and evoke sensations of power and movement that are emblematic of the journeying of the Tingari Men in the Tjukurpa (ancestral period). Tjungurrayi’s formal vocabulary consists of parallel lines that suggest shifting sand ridges, the rising haze of heat, the meandering tracks of snakes, the ripping surface of water and the streamlined form of spears. The mesmeric designs find their source in engraved tjurunga (sic) and bullroarers (sacred objects) which are used to radiate the potency of ancestral presence to you initiates. While the artist’s visual matrix oscillates between gently contoured lines to complex geometric pattering, all contour up the topographical majesty and latent spiritual power of the Gibson Desert (ibid, p.65)."

Image Credits

Photographer Matt Frost