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This body of work emerged from my return to my bush property following the recent Victorian fires. Rather than depicting the visible aftermath of fire, I found myself drawn to something less obvious – the feeling that the land had changed in ways that were difficult to articulate…… Continue reading
Continue readingAcrylic on Linen
122 x 182 cm
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118 x 207 cm
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Acrylic on Linen
183 x 243 cm
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Acrylic on Linen
122 x 91 cm
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Acrylic on Linen
152 x 91 cm
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Acrylic on Canvas
83 x 63 cm Framed
A$7,500 Buy NowBORN circa 1936
DIED 2018
REGION Western desert
LANGUAGE Pintupi
Willy Tjungurrayi (c.1936–2018) was a senior Pintupi artist and one of the leading figures of the Papunya Tula movement. Born at Patjantja, south-west of Lake Mackay, he spent his early life living traditionally on Country before moving with his family to Haasts Bluff in the 1950s and later to Papunya. He began painting with Papunya Tula Artists in 1976 and became one of the movement’s most respected and influential painters.
A custodian of the Tingari Cycle, Willy’s paintings draw on ancestral narratives connected to his Country around Kulkuta, Tjukula, Yumari, Patjantja and Lake Mackay. His work evolved from intricate compositions of concentric circles and finely rendered dotting to striking monochromatic paintings built from countless flowing lines, evoking the movement of sand dunes, weather and the enduring presence of ancestral beings across the desert landscape.
Celebrated for his exceptional command of colour, rhythm and composition, Willy developed one of the most distinctive visual languages in contemporary Aboriginal art. His paintings are held in major public and private collections throughout Australia and internationally, and he is widely regarded as one of the most important Western Desert artists of his generation.
Exhibitions
1982 Georges Gallery, Melbourne.
1982 Brisbane Festival, 1982, Mori Gallery, Sydney
1983 Papunya: paintings from the Central Australian Desert, touring exhibition, America and Europe.
1985 Dot and Circle, a retrospective survey of the Aboriginal acrylic paintings of Central Australia, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne
1987 Art and Aboriginality, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK
1988 Australian Aboriginal Graphics from the Collection of the Flinders University Art Museum.
1989 Aboriginal Art: The Continuing Tradition, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
1991 The Painted Dream: Contemporary Aboriginal paintings from the Tim and Vivien Johnson Collection, Auckland Art Gallery and Te Whare Taonga o Aoteroa National Art Gallery, New Zealand
1994 Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Exhibition, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs.
1994 Yiribana, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
2004 Papunya Tula Artists 2004: Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Australian Aboriginal Art Collector’s Exhibition, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne.
2003 Kintore Kiwirrkura 2003: Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
Collections
Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands.
Artbank, Sydney.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra.
The Holmes a Court Collection, Perth.
The Kelton Foundation
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