Warlu Jukurrpa (Fire Dreaming), 2003

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

91 x 91 cm

Est. $3,000 – $5,000

Hammer $2,600

Provenance: Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, Yuendumu, NT, Cat No. 1142/3 Private Collection, NSW
Artwork story: Fire in Warlpiri country is not only destructive — it renews. Warlu Jukurrpa, the Fire Dreaming, takes its name from Warlukurlangu, the site west of Yuendumu where ancestral fire swept through the country, and it is from this same site that the art centre where Paddy Japaljarri Sims painted for his entire career takes its name. The composition here is symmetrical and formally resolved: a central concentric circle anchors four radiating arms of parallel lines that move outward to each corner, the whole surface densely worked in warm gold, deep brown and black against a field of fine dotting. It is the kind of sustained, authoritative mark-making that comes from a lifetime of painting the same country. Sims was born around 1917 at Kunajarray (Mount Nicker), south-west of Yuendumu, at a site where a number of Dreaming tracks interconnect. He taught Jukurrpa, painting, hunting and traditional dancing at the Yuendumu school, and spent his life passing on knowledge to younger generations. In 1989 he was selected to travel to Paris with five other Warlpiri men to create a ground painting installation at Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou — one of the landmark moments of Aboriginal art's engagement with the international contemporary art world.

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Sale 3 · Lot 104

c.1917 – 2010

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

91 x 91 cm

Est. $3,000 – $5,000

Hammer $2,600

Provenance: Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, Yuendumu, NT, Cat No. 1142/3 Private Collection, NSW
Artwork story: Fire in Warlpiri country is not only destructive — it renews. Warlu Jukurrpa, the Fire Dreaming, takes its name from Warlukurlangu, the site west of Yuendumu where ancestral fire swept through the country, and it is from this same site that the art centre where Paddy Japaljarri Sims painted for his entire career takes its name. The composition here is symmetrical and formally resolved: a central concentric circle anchors four radiating arms of parallel lines that move outward to each corner, the whole surface densely worked in warm gold, deep brown and black against a field of fine dotting. It is the kind of sustained, authoritative mark-making that comes from a lifetime of painting the same country. Sims was born around 1917 at Kunajarray (Mount Nicker), south-west of Yuendumu, at a site where a number of Dreaming tracks interconnect. He taught Jukurrpa, painting, hunting and traditional dancing at the Yuendumu school, and spent his life passing on knowledge to younger generations. In 1989 he was selected to travel to Paris with five other Warlpiri men to create a ground painting installation at Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou — one of the landmark moments of Aboriginal art's engagement with the international contemporary art world.