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Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri Marrawa

WARLIMPIRRINGA TJAPALTJARRI

(Australian, b.circa. 1958)

Marawa, 2016

Acrylic on Belgian linen

244cm x 485cm

Acquired:2020

#Inventory/Catalogue No.TEMP38

Warlimpirrnga Tjapalja Marrawa

Biography:

In 1984, a Pintupi family of nine, which included Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, emerged from a traditional nomadic life in remote Western Australia, and into the communal fold of Kiwirrkurra.  Under unimaginable circumstances, the family was isolated from outside contact for more than 22 years.  Most accounts suggest that they remained in self-exile, waiting for contact from their relatives, who had earlier settled in communities throughout the Western Desert.

News of their arrival momentarily blazed the front page of newspapers across Australia and around the world.

In his role as the senior male of the group, Warlimpirrnga became somewhat of a conduit between the family and outsiders.  He arrived in Kiwirrkura an initiated man, in full command of desert law and ritual.  He and his younger brother, Piyiti Tjapaltjarri, despite their age, were known as powerful maparntjarra (doctor-men), further elevating him amongst his desert kin.

In 1987, while manager of Papunya Tula Artists, Daphne Williams, was on a routine field trip to Kiwirrkura, Warlimpirrnga approached her, requesting painting materials. Slowly over the coming months he produced a series of modest-sized circle and line depictions of Tingari ancestral stories.  These initial paintings were hesitant, the artist obviously grappling with new materials under the keen instruction of relatives.  Aware of their importance, as each work was completed, Daphne put them aside. This collection would later form the basis of his first solo exhibition at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1988, in Melbourne, a mere four years after his arrival in Kiwirrkura.  Since that time, as his reputation has grown, his work has found particular appeal among collectors around the world.

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri has been exhibiting since 1988, at commercial galleries throughout Australia and has been included in significant public, institutional and museum exhibitions nationally and internationally, since 1990.

He is represented in many private, corporate and institutional collections including Quai Branly Museum, Paris, France, Musee National Des Arts Africains et Oceaniens, France, The Kelton Foundation Collection, USA., Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, USA, Toledo Musuem of Art, Toledo, OH, USA, The Wilkerson Collection, New York, USA, The Dennis Scholl Collection, Miami, USA

National Gallery of Austrtalia, Canberra, Australia , Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria, Australia, Macquarie Bank Collection, Australia, Griffith University Art Collection, Griffith, NSW, Australia, Artbank, Australia.

The artwork:

This painting depicts designs associated with the swamp site of Marawa, situated slightly west of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay).  There is also a rockhole and soakage waters at this site.  During ancestral times a large group of Tingari men travelled to Marawa from the west, and after arriving at the site, passed beneath the earth’s surface and continued travelling underground.  It is also said that a huge ancestral snake sleeps in this swamp.  Since events associated with the Tingari Cycle are of a secret nature no further detail is given.

Generally, the Tingari are a group of ancestral beings of the Dreaming who travelled over vast stretches of the country, performing rituals and creating and shaping particular sites.  The Tingari men were usually followed by Tingari women and were accompanied by novices, and their travels and adventures are enshrined in a number of song cycles. These ancestral stories form part of the teachings of the post initiatory youths today, as well as providing explanations for contemporary customs.

Bibliography:

Perkins, H. and H. Fink (eds), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales in association with Papunya Tula Artists, Sydney, 2000

Skerritt, H., ed. et al, No Boundaries: Australian Aboriginal Contemporary Abstract Painting, Prestel Verlag, Munich-London-New York, 2014

View more works by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri at the Art Gallery of New South Wales , and the National Gallery of Victoria.