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$Aud 18,000 + GST 10% for sales
in Australia Dreaming The Tingari are commonly described as a group of ancestral beings, with one or more dominate men or women, who brought law and culture to the people of the western desert regions. The Tingarri stories recount creation time travels of a particularly important group of elders who taught ritual knowledge to initiates. These designs are derived from ancient ground and sand paintings and from body decorations. It is said that this knowledge gifted group of men travelled across the country. This painting shows patterns relating to these travels, the pattern show their campsite as they systematically travelled across the country. This painting forms part of the post initiate teachings for youths today and explains contemporary and traditional customs of the aboriginal people. During the initiation ceremonies, sacred information about the aboriginal Dreamtime are passed on to the initiates. As these ceremonies are sacred to the Pintupi people, no further information could be given by the artist.
Timmy
Payungka Japangardi Timmy’s
paintings are amongst the most enigmatic of all the desert artists. His
dreamings include Tingari stories, Bush Tomato, Wilkinkarra snake,
Snake, Dancing Women, Dingo, and Water. He is also a major figure in the
significant clay-pan site of Panayingi, a place where in ancient times
people gathered to celebrate the bountiful rain.
This site features in many of his paintings which deal with
seasonal change, water and snake dreamings. Timmmy paints the mythology
of the Lake Hazlett area and in his early days at Papunya, was also
known to paint the “Milky Way Dreaming’, a story which he pointed
out belonged to many tribes. As
was the case with so many other Pintupi families in the 1950’s,
Timmy’s family moved east from their homelands in search of permanent
water and food supplies. In his case the family trekked from Central
Lake Mackay, where he had been born in c1942, towards the settlement at
Haasts Bluff. Their move proved unproductive and the family returned to
their homelands. By
1962 Timmy his wife and their young child were living at Yarrana
Rockhole, west of Kintore. Again he was tempted to travel east to seek a
more secure way of life. This time Timmy settled at the new
government-run community at Papunya. This, of course, proved to be a
fortunate move for it was there that he became involved in the very
early stages of the desert art movement. His work made him a vital part
of the original ‘painting mob’, encouraged at that time by Geoff
Bardon. Timmy was one of a group of artists to visit Bardon at his house
in the community. It has been claimed that he painted the very first
desert image for Bardon, a tjuringa-shaped shaped work on a linoleum
floor tile. When
the ‘homelands’ movement got underway in the early 1980’s Timmy
was responsible for moving his family first to Kintore and several years
later to Kiwirrkura. Partly due to his influence both of these places
have since developed into important desert art sites. A number of other
painters who originally developed with the movement at Papunya followed
the same pattern of migration away from that place. Timmy’s
work shares a concern for vibrant linear pattern with fellow Pintupi
painters Turkey Tolson (qv) and Ronnie Jampitjinpa (qv). During the late
1990’s he entered a black & white phase in his painting depicting
Tingari dreaming stories in intricate maze-like patterns which dazzle
the eye. During 1999 Timmy spent some time painting in Alice Springs,
but poor health seemed to be bringing his career to and end. Despite
this he has managed to maintain an active ceremonial life. Timmy
Payungka is one of a vanishing breed. Brought up in the bush with
traditional values he is with amongst the last ceremonial leaders and
painters to survive into the new century. His knowledge of ceremony, the
‘old ways’ and the seminal moments with Bardon and the others at
Papunya make his work of special interest and of peculiar historical
importance. There is no doubt he is a master of desert art and has lived
through and contributed vitally to an era which will remain singularly
consequential in Australia’s Aboriginal art history. He is a man of
high degree. His
work was exhibited in the prestigious “Dreamings, The Art of
Aboriginal Australia”, shown in New York in 1988. Collectors
around the world prize his canvasses and he is also one of the most
exhibited of all Australian Aboriginal painters. His work may be seen in
the following collections, Artbank, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western
Australia, Perth; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory,
Darwin; Museum of Victoria, Melbourne; National Gallery of Victoria,
Melbourne; South Australian Museum, Adelaide; The Holmes a Court
Collection, Perth; The
Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, U.S.A. A small selection of exhibitions from an extensive range includes, 1984, Papunya and Beyond, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs; 1988, Dreamings, the Art of Aboriginal Australia, The Asia Society Galleries, New York; 1989, Papunya Tula: Contemporary Paintings from Australia's Western Desert, John Weber Gallery, New York, USA.; 1990, l'ete Australien a' Montpellier, Musee Fabre Gallery, Montpellier, France; 1992, Tjukurrpa, Museum fur Volkerkunde, Basel, Tjinytjilpa, The Dotted Design, Washington DC, USA 1999. |
