Saturday, September 17, 2022

The Paintings of Patrick Tjungurrayi [1-5]
Artist Profile

Marie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below other posts on Australian aboriginal textiles and artwork.
Untitled Artworks (Exhibition - ArtCloth: Engaging New Visions) Tjariya (Nungalka) Stanley and Tjunkaya Tapaya, Ernabella Arts (Australia)
ArtCloth from the Tiwi Islands
Aboriginal Batik From Central Australia
ArtCloth from Utopia
Aboriginal Art Appropriated by Non-Aboriginal Artists
ArtCloth from the Women of Ernabella
ArtCloth From Kaltjiti (Fregon)
Australian Aboriginal Silk Paintings
Contemporary Aboriginal Prints
Batiks from Kintore
Batiks From Warlpiri (Yuendumu)
Aboriginal Batiks From Northern Queensland
Artworks From Remote Aboriginal Communities
Urban Aboriginal ArtCloths
Western Australian Aboriginal Fabric Lengths
Northern Editions - Aboriginal Prints
Aboriginal Bark Paintings
Contemporary Aboriginal Posters (1984) - (1993)
The Art of Arthur Pambegan Jr
Aboriginal Art - Colour Power
Aboriginal Art - Part I
Aboriginal Art - Part II
The Art of Ngarra
The Paintings of Patrick Tjungurrayi
Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri


The Paintings of Patrick Tjungurrayi [1-5]
Warning to the Indigeneous population of Australia: This post contains an image of a deceased aboriginal elder.

The Tingari (Tingarri) cycle in Australian Aboriginal mythology embodies a vast network of Aboriginal Dreaming (tjukurpa) songlines that traverse the Western Desert region of Australia. Locations and events associated with the Tingari cycle are frequently the subject of Aboriginal Art from the region.

Patrick Tjungurrayi was born in Yalangerri near Jupiter Well in Western Australia around 1935. He is a Pintupi and Kukatja speaker, the brother of the late Brandy Tjungurrayi and Elizabeth Nyumi, both major artists from the Balgo community.

Yalangerri near Jupiter Well in Western Australia
As a young man, he walked with his family following the Canning Stock Route north into old Balgo Mission which had been established in 1943. The family would collect rations such as wheat, which they would grind up themselves, and rice, sugar and tea, and then return to the bush. Patrick Tjungurrayi spent his early years travelling between Balgo and Kiwirrkura, moving with his family across their traditional lands.

Patrick Tjungurrayi
Patrick Tjungurrayi eventually moved to the Old Balgo Mission, where he worked building stone houses and later the church at the new Balgo site. He met and married Mirriam Oloodoodi, Lucy Yukenbari’s sister, but returned to Kintore shortly after while she remained behind. Through the early 1980s Patrick travelled to Christmas Creek, Docker River and other desert communities. Patrick Tjungurrayi is a senior law man for his country. He began painting in Balgo in 1986, and more recently exhibited with Papunya Tula (gallery).

Papunya Tula Artist Pty Ltd
My favorite gallery in Alice Springs. Papunya Tula Artist Pty Ltd exhibiting artists of the Western Desert.

In 2008 Patrick Tjungurrayi won the Western Australian Indigenous Art Award sponsored by the Art Gallery of Western Australia. His work is described as having a powerful presence – masterful and monumental. Aboriginal art status – Highly collectable artist.

Although committed to his role as an artist, Patrick was primarily a traditional keeper of Law where finding the balance between his many responsibilities would only allow for the production of a small number of considered paintings each year. In 2008, with the submission of a select body of work in the inaugural Western Australian Art Awards, his unparalleled mastery and contribution to contemporary Western Desert painting was revealed, unanimously winning him the major prize.

Patrick’s work sits within major collections both within Australia and internationally such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. Drawn from the roots of his solitary journeys, Patrick’s desire to express and share his country is nothing less than a gift with a global reach.

Patrick passed away on Christmas Eve in 2017 after an 8-year battle with kidney failure. Towards the end of his life, Patrick’s paintings also became a gift of advocacy for his people and for wider desert communities. From being the lead artist in the Kiwirrkurra Men’s painting in the 2000 auction for the development of the first dialysis unit in Kintore, to his painting Rockhole Site of Nyirrimarlu, 2005 which graces the side of the mobile Purple Truck, Patrick’s painting career wraps around the history of dialysis on Country and weaves Pintupi past, present and future connection to the land into consciousness.

The gift of Patrick Tjungurrayi resounds with the truth of what he valued in his life, his family and culture and deep love of the country that made him. His paintings, a record of knowledge, landscape and ideas, far from periphery to his life were at the heart of it, a prism of multiple narratives inspiring those around him as it will continue to do so long after his death.
Tingari
Tingari April (2008).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 153 cm (high) x 183 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari April (2009).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 61 cm (high) x 91 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari April (2010).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 178 cm (high) x 200 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari May (2010).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 178 cm (high) x 200 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari May (2010) - Detail.
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 60 cm (high) x 150 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari May (2010) - Detail.
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 90 cm (high) x 120 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari May (2012).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 96 cm (high) x 180 cm (wide).

Tingari
Tingari April (2014).
Material: Acrylic on linen.
Size: 90 cm (high) x 120 cm (wide).


References:
[1] Vanessa Merlino. Vanessa Merlino worked as a field officer for Papunya Tula Artists and as studio manager at Ninuku Arts in the APY Lands, working closely with a number of Australia’s most significant Indigenous artists. Vanessa holds degrees in Visual Arts, Community Cultural Development and most recently a Master of Art Curatorship at The University of Melbourne where she was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for outstanding academic achievement.
[2] Clothilde Bullen, ‘Ethics and Provenance in Indigenous Art’, in Reverence exhibition catalogue, D’Lan Davidson (2019).
[3] John Carty ed. Patrick Tjungurrayi: Beyond Borders, UWA Publishing, The University of Western Australia (2015).
[4] Luke Scholes, in Patrick Tjungurrayi and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri exhibition catalogue, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne (2009).
[5] Ashley Crawford, ‘Patrick Tjungurrayi’ in Australian Art Collector, 50 of the Most Collectable Artists, Issue 31, Jan – March (2005) page 104.

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