Untitled, 1978

synthetic polymer paint on canvas board

55.5 x 71 cm

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Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. TT781222 Private Collection NSW
Artwork story: In the ancestral period, a group of travelling women known as the Kungka Tjuta—literally “many women”—camped at Willkinkarra, a lake site situated near the Western Australia–Northern Territory border, far west of Alice Springs. During their journey northward, the women adorned their bodies with ceremonial designs celebrating their travels and performed a series of rituals collectively referred to as Yawulu. For these ceremonies, they used ngalyipi—a sacred vine or bark fibre traditionally gathered from plants growing in the surrounding sandhills. The Kungka Tjuta also took part in a ceremonial game called Munni Munni, performed with the intention of attracting suitable marriage partners. In this painting, the concentric circles represent the site of Willkinkarra. The connecting lines symbolise strands of ngalyipi used in ceremony, while the fields of dotted infill evoke the body paint designs worn by the women during ceremony.

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c.1938 – 2001

synthetic polymer paint on canvas board

55.5 x 71 cm

Sold

Provenance: Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. TT781222 Private Collection NSW
Artwork story: In the ancestral period, a group of travelling women known as the Kungka Tjuta—literally “many women”—camped at Willkinkarra, a lake site situated near the Western Australia–Northern Territory border, far west of Alice Springs. During their journey northward, the women adorned their bodies with ceremonial designs celebrating their travels and performed a series of rituals collectively referred to as Yawulu. For these ceremonies, they used ngalyipi—a sacred vine or bark fibre traditionally gathered from plants growing in the surrounding sandhills. The Kungka Tjuta also took part in a ceremonial game called Munni Munni, performed with the intention of attracting suitable marriage partners. In this painting, the concentric circles represent the site of Willkinkarra. The connecting lines symbolise strands of ngalyipi used in ceremony, while the fields of dotted infill evoke the body paint designs worn by the women during ceremony.