Thomas Tjapaltjarri and Walala Tjapaltjarri collaboration Tingari Painting

2020 x 117cm

Acrylic on unstretched Canvas

Thomas Tjapaltjarri was born in the Gibson Desert in the early 1960’s and is a member of the Pintupi tribe. The sensation in October 1984 was when Thomas and eight other members of his tribe walked out of the desert into the 20th century. Thomas and his family, which includes fellow artists Warlimpirrnga, Walala, Yukultji, Yalti and Tjakaria, led a completely nomadic life until they emerged from the desert.

While all the other Aboriginals in the area were being settled on government stations further east, their small family group escaped the net. They continued to live the traditional aboriginal life of nomadic hunter-gatherers. They had no contact with the modern world of ‘white’ twentieth-century Australia until 1984.

It was then that they were ‘found’ by a party from a recently re-settled aboriginal outstation at  Kiwirrkuru. The discovery created international headlines. It also created a new life for the wandering tribe. In 2000 -2002 he started to paint. His brothers, both very famous artists, Warlimpirrnga and Walala, inspired him to do so.

The subjects of his painting are the Tingari Cycle, a series of sacred and mythological songs connected to his birth ground. His Tingari Cycle paintings are associated with the artist’s Dreaming sites located throughout the vast sandhill country of the Western Australian desert.

It was at Kiwirrkuru that Thomas began to paint on canvas, setting down the stories and images of an unbroken cultural tradition stretching back tens of thousands of years. This style is characterized by its rectangular shapes and lines surrounded by dots. The strength of his work was recognised at once and is very popular today.

His style is strongly gestural and boldly graphic, one that is generally highlighted by a series of rectangles set against a monochrome background.

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In late 1984, Walala Tjapaltjarri and several other members of the Pintupi tribe walked out of the remote wilderness of the Gibson Desert in Western Australia and made contact for the first time with European society. Described as ‘The Lost Tribe”, he and his family created international headlines.

Until that day in 1984, Walala and his family lived the tradtional and nomadic life of a hunter-gatherer society. Their intimate knowledge of the land, its flora and fauna and waterholes allowed them to survive, as their ancestors had for thousands of years.

It is this sacred landscape with its significant sites that Walala so strikingly describes in his paintings. His style is strongly gestural and boldly graphic, one that is generally highlighted by a series of rectangles set against a monochrome back ground. He paints the

Tingari Cycle (a series of sacred and secret mythological song cycles) which are associated with the artist’s many dreaming sites—they are Wilkinkarra, Marau, Tarrku, Njami and Yarrawangu, to name a few. These Dreamings are the locations of significant rockholes, sandhills, sacred mountains and water soakages in the Gibson Desert.

Walala Tjapaltjarri was first introduced to painting by his brother Warlimpirrnga, also a painter of international acclaim. While Walala’s first painting were in a classical Tingari style usually reserved for body painting, ground painting and the decoration of traditional artifacts, within a couple of months of painting he evolved his own innovation style of work. He began abstracting the classical Pintupi designs, creating a highly graphic language to speak of his country and ceremonial sites. The rectangles so prominent in his paintings from both a physical and spiritual map establishing Walala as a discerning draughtsman for his ancient country.

Walala’s family lived in the desert for this long without detection because they use to walk on spinifex clumps around Lake MacKay so they didn’t leave footprints. Lake MacKay is a massive salt lake that was once an inland sea and has islands with fresh water springs. They finally walked into Kiwirrkurra in 1984 due to a severe drought, which had dried up all of the springs and depleted the bush foods they had previously been surviving on.