Stockroom67 of 549
Click to enlargec.1930 – 2018
- Region
- Western Desert
- Community
- Kintore (Walungurru)
- Language group
- Pintupi
Yawutinya, 1978
synthetic polymer paint on composition board
76 x 38 cm
Price on application — enquire
- Provenance
- Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. WJ781208 Private Collection Vic Accompanied a certificate of authenticity from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd
- Artwork story
- Yawutinya emerged from the ground far to the west of Alice Springs, well over the Western Australian border, and during its travels came across a group of Tingari Men before re-entering the ground. The Papunya Tula Artists documentation records that the path of this mythological poisonous serpent is marked by the sinuous line that moves through the composition. The Tingari camps are the sets of concentric circles. The background dotting represents the bush foods of the area, with the fruit wangunu noted particularly. At the centre of the board a large dark form, densely dotted in deep brown, suggests the body of the serpent returning to earth. The sinuous line threads through ten concentric circle sites as it travels the length of the field, the warm ochre ground worked throughout in close dotting of dusky pinks, creams and white. The palette is restrained and earthen in the manner Willy would make his signature across four decades of practice. This board dates from 1978, just two years into his painting career. Willy was born around 1932 at Patjantja, south-west of Lake Mackay, and described growing up in the desert in his own words as walking around naked with only a nulla nulla and woomera. He came to Haasts Bluff in 1956 with a large group of Pintupi and was moved to Papunya in 1959. He began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1976 and by the time of his death in 2018 had become one of the company's most senior painters. As the middle brother between Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi, whose work also appears in this Catalogue, and George Ward Tjungurrayi, he belonged to one of the great painting families of the Western Desert. His position in his community entitled him to paint the sacred and secret dimensions of the Tingari cycle, and he carried that authority for more than forty years.