Rock Holes and Country near the Olgas, 2007

synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

91 x 46 cm

Est. $7,000 – $9,000

Hammer $8,500

Provenance: Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu, Mount Liebig, NT, Cat No. 77-204 Deutscher and Hackett, Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, Vic, 14 October 2009, Lot 139 Newstead Art, Bondi Beach, NSW, Cat No. 30390 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu
Exhibited: Small Treasures, Newstead Art, Bondi Beach, NSW, February 2024.
Artwork story: During the battle between the Cockatoo and the Crow, white feathers were scattered across country and the landscape became indented where the combatants crashed to the ground. Subterranean streams filled those impressions with water and a circular amphitheatre was formed by the sweep of wings. A large glowing white rock now marks where the cockatoo fell, still drawing water from the sacred pools. This is the Dreaming of Pirupa Akla, the country near Kata Tjuta and Uluru where Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri was born, and it was his alone to paint. Three rock holes descend the vertical field, each described as a spiral of concentric rings in brown and white against a ground worked throughout in bold dots of blue, red, yellow and white. A diagonal band of deep blue and white cuts across the upper half of the canvas, the trajectory of the ancestral encounter still visible in the country. The Watiyawanu Artists certificate records that the blues, yellows and reds are tempered by cockatoo-white, representing the wildflowers that grow in profusion after rain. Whiskey was born around 1920 at Pirupa Akla and spent his early life moving through desert country before settling at an outstation of Amunturrungu near Mount Liebig. A ngankari, a traditional healer, and keeper of sacred knowledge, he did not begin painting until he was eighty-five. In the four years that followed he completed a relatively small number of large canvases, mapping the rockholes, hills and rocky outcrops of his country and recording the Cockatoo Dreaming that had shaped it.

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Sale 3 · Lot 3

Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri

c.1920 – 2008

Region: Western Desert
Community: Amunturrngu (Mount Liebig, Amunturrungu, Watiyawanu, New Bore)
Language group: Pitjantjatjara

Rock Holes and Country near the Olgas, 2007

synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen

91 x 46 cm

Est. $7,000 – $9,000

Hammer $8,500

Provenance: Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu, Mount Liebig, NT, Cat No. 77-204 Deutscher and Hackett, Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, Vic, 14 October 2009, Lot 139 Newstead Art, Bondi Beach, NSW, Cat No. 30390 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu
Exhibited: Small Treasures, Newstead Art, Bondi Beach, NSW, February 2024.
Artwork story: During the battle between the Cockatoo and the Crow, white feathers were scattered across country and the landscape became indented where the combatants crashed to the ground. Subterranean streams filled those impressions with water and a circular amphitheatre was formed by the sweep of wings. A large glowing white rock now marks where the cockatoo fell, still drawing water from the sacred pools. This is the Dreaming of Pirupa Akla, the country near Kata Tjuta and Uluru where Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri was born, and it was his alone to paint. Three rock holes descend the vertical field, each described as a spiral of concentric rings in brown and white against a ground worked throughout in bold dots of blue, red, yellow and white. A diagonal band of deep blue and white cuts across the upper half of the canvas, the trajectory of the ancestral encounter still visible in the country. The Watiyawanu Artists certificate records that the blues, yellows and reds are tempered by cockatoo-white, representing the wildflowers that grow in profusion after rain. Whiskey was born around 1920 at Pirupa Akla and spent his early life moving through desert country before settling at an outstation of Amunturrungu near Mount Liebig. A ngankari, a traditional healer, and keeper of sacred knowledge, he did not begin painting until he was eighty-five. In the four years that followed he completed a relatively small number of large canvases, mapping the rockholes, hills and rocky outcrops of his country and recording the Cockatoo Dreaming that had shaped it.