Jilamara Design, 2015

natural earth pigments on Belgian linen

86 x 55 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,600

Provenance: Munupi Arts & Crafts Association, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island, NT, Cat No. 15-158 Private Collection, NSW
Artwork story: During Tiwi ceremony, participants are painted with turtiyanginari, the natural ochre colours, in designs that transform the dancers and in some cases protect them from recognition by mapurtiti, the spirits. Some of these designs are totemic, inherited through the mother's line; others accompany newly composed songs performed through yoi, the dances that give ceremony its life. Collectively these designs are jilamara, the body paint tradition that is the visual foundation of Tiwi culture. Tipuamantumirri applied jilamara to linen using a kayimwagakimi, a comb-shaped ironwood tool dipped in ochre, a method that produces the characteristic repeating diagonal grid that covers this canvas from edge to edge. Against a deep black ground, intersecting lines and dotted marks in dusty pink and terracotta build a surface that shifts between structure and atmosphere as the eye moves across it. The lines are the marks of ceremony rendered portable. Tipuamantumirri was born around 1929 near the barge landing at Pirlangimpi on Melville Island, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life. Her father's ancestral country was Imalu Point and her mother's was Munupi, both on Melville Island. She belonged to the Warntarringa, the Sun skin group, and her Dreaming was Jarrikalani, the Turtle. A respected elder of Pirlangimpi and a member of Munupi Arts and Crafts Association, she died in 2023.

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Sale 3 · Lot 20

Cornelia Tipuamantumirri

1929 – 2023

Region: Tiwi Islands
Community: Pirlangimpi (Garden Point, Pularumpi)
Language group: Tiwi

Jilamara Design, 2015

natural earth pigments on Belgian linen

86 x 55 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,600

Provenance: Munupi Arts & Crafts Association, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island, NT, Cat No. 15-158 Private Collection, NSW
Artwork story: During Tiwi ceremony, participants are painted with turtiyanginari, the natural ochre colours, in designs that transform the dancers and in some cases protect them from recognition by mapurtiti, the spirits. Some of these designs are totemic, inherited through the mother's line; others accompany newly composed songs performed through yoi, the dances that give ceremony its life. Collectively these designs are jilamara, the body paint tradition that is the visual foundation of Tiwi culture. Tipuamantumirri applied jilamara to linen using a kayimwagakimi, a comb-shaped ironwood tool dipped in ochre, a method that produces the characteristic repeating diagonal grid that covers this canvas from edge to edge. Against a deep black ground, intersecting lines and dotted marks in dusty pink and terracotta build a surface that shifts between structure and atmosphere as the eye moves across it. The lines are the marks of ceremony rendered portable. Tipuamantumirri was born around 1929 near the barge landing at Pirlangimpi on Melville Island, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life. Her father's ancestral country was Imalu Point and her mother's was Munupi, both on Melville Island. She belonged to the Warntarringa, the Sun skin group, and her Dreaming was Jarrikalani, the Turtle. A respected elder of Pirlangimpi and a member of Munupi Arts and Crafts Association, she died in 2023.