50 years of the Papunya Tula Artists 1972company-2022
50 years of PTA 1972 - 2022 Utopia Art Sydney representing PTA since 1988
Papunya Tula Artists was at the forefront of the contemporary Indigenous art movement across Australia. When a small group of men began painting at Papunya in 1971 using a visual language derived from their own culture, no one could have imagined the significance it would have over the next five decades. This transformative moment was the start of the Papunya Tula school of painting that has endured and thrives today, in the process changing the face of art in Australia forever. Only 12 months later it was the artists themselves who registered their company, Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. The artists ofthe Western Desert Art Movement were in control of their own art. Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd was the first Indigenous owned Arts Centre across the desert and beyond; Papunya Tula Artists is now an integral part of Australia’s cultural heritage.
George Tjungurrayi, Untitled, 2006, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
George Tjungurrayi first worked amongst the senior Pintupi men painters in the 1970s, and now is one of the major artists of Papunya Tjungurrayi’sTula.paintings, with their swirls and squares, immediately capture our attention both in their overall presence and in their finer details. His paintings have been included in several major exhibitions such as the Biennale of Sydney in 2018, and in a series of exhibitions of art from the Western Desert at Gagosian Galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
George Tjungurrayi
This painting depicts designs associated with the claypan site of Kirrimalunya, north of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) in Western Australia. In ancestral times two young ngangkaris, or traditional healers, lived at this site and travelled great distances to use their healing powers. Healing power is generally given to ngangkaris by the time they are around ten years old. While at Kirrimalunya the boys gathered mungilypa or samphire from the small bushy sub-shrub tecticornia verrucosa. The seeds from this plant can be ground into a paste which is then cooked in the coals to form a type of damper.
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa has painted for over forty years using geometric forms, bold lines and pulsating colour. Ronnie Tjampitjinpa was born west of the Kintore Ranges in Western Australia. With his family he walked across the vast Pintupi country to Haasts Bluff and later to Yuendumu and Papunya. He returned to Kintore (Walungurru) in the early 1980s. Ronnie Tjampitjinpa is undoubtably one of Australia’s foremost abstract painters. That his unique work has emerged from some of Australia’s most remote parts, without any art school training or education in the western tradition of contemporary art, is all the more Ronnieamazing.
TjampitjinpaThispainting
depicts designs associated with Tingari ceremonies at Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). In mythological times four senior Tingari Men, represented by the larger shapes at one end of the work, were camped at this site. Young men, represented by the smaller shapes, travelled to Wilkinkarra from all directions to receive instruction from these senior men. Tjampitjinpa, Untitled, 2003, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
Ronnie
designs associated with the rockhole and swamp site of Mamultjulkulnga, on the western side of Wilkinkarra, WA. During ancestral times a large group of Tingari men travelled south from here to Marawa, and after arriving passed beneath the earth’s surface and travelled underground. It is also said that a huge ancestral snake sleeps in the swamp at Marawa.
Tjapaltjarri first painted for Papunya Tula Artists in 1987, just three years after he and a group of family members walked into Kiwirrkurra after a life lived in the desert, without any contact with Westerners. His first paintings were exhibited at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1988. Since then he has appeared in many exhibitions, and in 2000 Warlimpirrnga travelled to Sydney with a group of four men from Kiwirrkurra to make a ground painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for the opening of ‘Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius’. In 2012, Warlimpirrnga was amongst a small group of Australian artists to have work included in DOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. Warlimpirrnga’s work can be found in many public and corporatecollections.Warlimpirrnga
TjapaltjarriThispaintingdepicts
Warlimpirrnga
Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Untitled, 2020, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
Mantuapaint.
Mantua lives and works at Kiwirrkura in Western MantuaAustralia.Nangala was commissioned to paint several large paintings for the 4th Indigenous Art Triennial, Ceremony, at the National Gallery of Australia. They are now a part of the NGA collection. Her fine dotted paintings evoke the sand dunes and country around the sacred women’s site of Marrapinti near Kiwirrrkurra in WA. Mantua began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1988, after watching her father and husband
NangalaThe
Mantua Nangala, Untitled, 2021, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
While at the site the women made the nose bones, also known as marrapinti, which are worn through a hole made in the nose web. These nose bones were originally used by both men and women but are now only inserted by the older generation on ceremonial occasions.
lines in this painting represent the sandhills at the site of Marrapinti, west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia. A large group of ancestral women camped at this rockhole before continuing their travels further east, passing through Wala Wala, Kiwirrkura and Ngaminya.
Mantua Nangla was born at Tjilurru circa 1959. She is the daughter of Anatjari Tjampitjinpa and the sister of Ray James Tjangala, Yinarupa Nangala and George Yapa Tjangala, all of whom have painted for Papunya Tula Artists.
As the women continued their travels towards the east they gathered the edible berries known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the small shrub Solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten directly from the plant but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked on the coals as a type of damper.
Yukultji Napangati won the Wynne Prize at the AGNSW in 2018.
Yukultji Napangati
Yukultji Napangati was born near Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) in Western Australia around 1971, and now lives and works in Kiwirrkurra in WA. A rising star of Papunya Tula Artists, her work is in important international and Australian public and private collections. Her paintings shimmer as the lines of dots undulate across the surface, drawing on tradition stories of ancestral women travelling across country and camping at important sites.
The lines in this painting represent the sandhills at the site of Marrapinti, west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia. A large group of ancestral women camped at this rockhole before continuing their travels further east, passing through Wala Wala, Kiwirrkura and Ngaminya. While at the site the women made the nose bones, also known as marrapinti, which are worn through a hole made in the nose web. These nose bones were originally used by both men and women but are now only inserted by the older generation on ceremonial occasions.
Yukultji Napangati, Untitled, 2022, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
Yukultji Napangati, Untitled, 2020, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
Yukultji Napangati In ancestral times a large group of Kanaputa women passed eastwards through the rockhole site of Tjuntulpul, west of Kiwirrkura WA. The roundels represent the various campsites along the way. They stopped at Marrapinti, where they made marrapinti (nose bones) These are now worn on ceremonial occasions and usually by the older generation.
Ray James is the son of Anatjari Tjampitjinpa, one of the early painters of the Papunya Tula movement. He was born in the desert circa 1958. Jeremy Long, a Government Patrol Officer, encountered him and his family at the Wudungunya Rockhole, northeast of Jupiter Well, on one of his patrols in 1963. The family are mentioned in Douglas Lockwood’s book The Lizard Eaters. His family later moved to the Papunya Community. With his father’s instruction Ray James first tried painting in 1987. However, it was not until the mid 1990s that Ray emerged as one of the core group of second generation artists at Kiwirrkurra.
Ray James Tjangala
Ray James Tjangala, Untitled, 2010, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
This painting depicts designs associated with Tingari Ceremonies at Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). In mythological times four senior Tingari Men, were camped at this site. Young men are also represented in the painting and travelled to Wilkinkarra from all directions to receive instruction from these senior men.
‘Peintres Aborigenes d’Australie’ at the Grande Halle de la Vilette. Over the course of a week Joseph and Turkey constructed two sand paintings that became a main feature of the exhibition. In 2009 he travelled to the Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University New York to again construct a sand painting, this time as part of the exhibition ‘Icons of The Desert – Early
from Papunya’. West of Kiwirrkura in WA is Yunala, a creek and rockhole site, where edible tubers, also called yunala, grow. In ancestral times a large group of Tingari women camped here and dug the tubers before travelling north east to Wilkinkarra. The lines in this painting also represent the root system of the plant growing out from the main water source .
Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri, Untitled, 2006, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
TjapaltjarriAboriginalPaintings
Joseph Jurra
Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri was born circa 1952, near where the community of Kiwirrkura now stands. He began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1986 and held his first solo exhibition just two years later at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne. In 1997 Joseph travelled with Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula to Paris to attend the exhibition
Yinarupa Nangala, Untitled, 2013, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
Yinarupa Nangala
Yinarupa is the daughter of the artist Anatjari Tjampitinpa. As a small child, she appeared with her brother Ray James Tjangala and her sister Mantua Nangala in the book ‘The Lizard Eater’. All three are now successful painters for Papunya Tula Artists. Yinarupa started painting in 1996, and now lives at Kiwirrkura.
During ancestral times a large group of ancestral women came from the west and stopped at the rockhole site of Mukala, east of Jupiter Well, WA. The women, represented in the painting by ‘u’ shapes, continued their travels eastward, passing through Kiwirrkura on their way to Wilkinkarra. The shapes in the painting represent the features of the country through which they travelled as well as the bush foods they gathered, including kampurarrpa (desert raisin) and pura (bush tomato).
Eileen Napaltjarri grew up in Haasts Bluff, before moving to Papunya and on to Kintore (Walungurru), and thus she has known the Papunya Tula movement from the very start. Her father Charlie Tararu Tjugurrayi was one of the founding members of Papunya Tula Artists, and her mother Tatali Nangala was also a very successful artist with the company. Eileen has had two solo exhibitions at Utopia Art Sydney, and her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. She received the Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Emerging Artist Award in 2005 and has work in major national art collections, including the Art Gallery of NSW and the National Gallery of Australia
Eileen Napaltjarri
This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole and soakage water site of Tjiturrulpa, in the rocky hills west of Kintore (Walungurru), NT. During ancestral times a group of men and women travelled east from this site toward Illpilli, and along the way they gathered material for the production of tools used in daily life. The lines of the painting depict the lengths of wood that are fashioned into a variety of tools including spears (kulata), nulla nullas (wana), shields (kiritji), and boomerangs (kali). While at Tjiturrulpa the group also gathered bush foods including pitjara (desert yam), pura (bush tomato) and Kampurarrpa (desert raisin).
Eileen Napaltjarri, Untitled, 2008, acrylic on linen, 183 x 244 cm
This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Tjutalpi, east of the Kiwirrkura community in WA. During ancestral times a group of men and women travelled to this site from the west. While at Tjutalpi they performed the dances and songs associated with the area. During their travels the men and women gathered a variety of bush foods including pura or bush tomatos, and kampurarrpa or desert raisins. They also gather the wood to make wana (digging Thesticks).roundels in this work represent the soakage waters found at this site.
Marypaints.
Mary Napangati, Untitled, 2020, acrylic on linen, 183 x 153 cm
Mary was born near Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) circa 1955. Her family lived in the vicinity of Lappi Lappi, at the northern area of Lake Mackay, until they walked into Mt. Doreen cattle station west of Yuendumu when Mary was approximately ten years Whenold. the station owner died the family moved to Yuendumu where she married, later moving further west to Nyirrpi and giving birth to two boys. After her husband passed away Mary remarried the well-known Papunya Tula artist Ronnie Tjampitjinpa in Kintore where she now lives and
Napangati
published by Utopia Art Sydney in collaboration with Papunya Tula Artists for Sydney Contemporary 2022 telephone: + 61 2 9319 6437 email: ©www.utopiaartsydney.com.auart@utopiaartsydney.com.auUtopiaArtSydney