Thomas Tjapaltjarri Large Tingari Painting. Australian Aboriginal Art

Thomas Tjapaltjarri

203 cm x  108 cm

In late 1984 Thomas 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,Thomas 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.