Ginger Wikilyiri Kunamata

The Artist

Ginger Wikilyiri  is an indigenous artist from Nyapari in South Australia.He was born around 1932 in the desert of north-western South Australia. This place is known as Kunamata, a rock hole south of what is now the  community of Nyapari. After initially living in the  bush, he settled in Ernabella. Wikilyiri worked in land management, horticulture and as a ranger.

The  Work of Art

Wikilyiri paints stories from his Dreaming, the spirituality that defines his kinship with the land. The Dreaming associated with his birthplace, Kunumata, carries the kuniya (a kind of python) as its totem. Wikilyiri's paintings depict sacred legends about his ancestors and how they created the land around Kunumata.^[ He also paints similar stories about Piltati, another rock hole nearby and a sacred site for Pitjantjatjara men.Pink dominates many of Wikilyiri's major paintings, which is an unusual choice of colour for the Western Desert style of art.

Kunumata is a wood-block work of art created in 2011. It is one of a number of works  of the same title created by Whiskey. It depicts a  series of rock-holes and desert formations close by.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_Wikilyiri