Japarra, 2019

natural earth pigments on bark

135 x 38 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Provenance: Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, Milikapiti, Melville Island, NT, Cat No. 211-19 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association
Artwork story: Japarra is the moon. In Tiwi ancestral memory he is also Purukapali's brother, adulterous and reckless, the cause of the world's first death. While Japarra conducted his affair with Bima, Purukapali's wife, the baby Jinani was left alone and died of heatstroke. When Purukapali discovered his son, he fought his brother with spears and throwing sticks, wounding him critically. Japarra flew up into the sky and became the moon. As Cook has said: "Japarra is the moon — it also means Moonman. He is important to the Tiwi people, they know." Three kulama circles descend the full length of this stringybark, each distinct in palette and presence. The uppermost is deep red and ochre against a black ground; the central the largest and most expansive, its rings of gold and red bleeding outward; the lowest rendered in grey-white and red, the light changing as the moon declines. From each circle, radiating lines of warm ochre extend outward like spokes, the marlipinyini of jilamara body paint design, interspersed with pwanga, dots that Cook identifies as japalinga, the stars. Cook has been painting at Jilamara Arts and Crafts on Melville Island since the late 1990s, drawing on the parlingarri jilamara, the old designs learned from the wulimawi. His Country is Mananowmi, in the Goose Creek area. He won the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2012. Jilamara Arts and Crafts artist profile, Timothy Cook; Una Rey, MCA Collection Handbook entry on Timothy Cook, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

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Sale 3 · Lot 21

Timothy Cook

b. 1958

Region: Tiwi Islands
Community: Milikapiti
Language group: Tiwi

Japarra, 2019

natural earth pigments on bark

135 x 38 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Provenance: Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, Milikapiti, Melville Island, NT, Cat No. 211-19 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association
Artwork story: Japarra is the moon. In Tiwi ancestral memory he is also Purukapali's brother, adulterous and reckless, the cause of the world's first death. While Japarra conducted his affair with Bima, Purukapali's wife, the baby Jinani was left alone and died of heatstroke. When Purukapali discovered his son, he fought his brother with spears and throwing sticks, wounding him critically. Japarra flew up into the sky and became the moon. As Cook has said: "Japarra is the moon — it also means Moonman. He is important to the Tiwi people, they know." Three kulama circles descend the full length of this stringybark, each distinct in palette and presence. The uppermost is deep red and ochre against a black ground; the central the largest and most expansive, its rings of gold and red bleeding outward; the lowest rendered in grey-white and red, the light changing as the moon declines. From each circle, radiating lines of warm ochre extend outward like spokes, the marlipinyini of jilamara body paint design, interspersed with pwanga, dots that Cook identifies as japalinga, the stars. Cook has been painting at Jilamara Arts and Crafts on Melville Island since the late 1990s, drawing on the parlingarri jilamara, the old designs learned from the wulimawi. His Country is Mananowmi, in the Goose Creek area. He won the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2012. Jilamara Arts and Crafts artist profile, Timothy Cook; Una Rey, MCA Collection Handbook entry on Timothy Cook, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.