Wangkartu, 2004

synthetic polymer paint on linen

120 x 80 cm

Est. $5,000 – $7,000

Hammer $4,600

Provenance: Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, WA, Cat No. 133/04 Alcaston Gallery, Fitzroy, Vic, Cat No. AK10543 Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Warlayirti Artists and Alcaston Gallery
Exhibited: Yungmantja, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Vic, and Depot Gallery, Sydney, NSW, 6 – 17 July 2004
Artwork story: The single black oval at the centre of Wangkartu marks a tjurrnu, a soakwater in the Kukatja language, and everything in this painting radiates outward from it. The sweeping horizontal bands of orange, burgundy, yellow, and white describe the tali, the great sandhills of the Gibson Desert Country south of Balgo where Helicopter Tjungurrayi was born. When asked about his paintings, Tjungurrayi would gesture fondly toward the southern horizon: "good country, my country." Tjungurrayi did not begin painting independently until 1994, having spent his earlier years working alongside his late wife, the renowned Balgo artist Lucy Yukenbarri. Stephen Williamson, Art Centre Co-ordinator at Warlayirti Artists, described his method from close observation: "He traces the contours of his country with the stroke of a brush. Later he re-traces these steps with the dabbing of the brush to create a mottled rippling surface of texture giving the painting body and depth." That layered surface is legible in Wangkartu: the lines are not flat stripes but built-up ridges, each band revisited and thickened through accumulation. Wangkartu comes from Yungmantja, the 2004 solo exhibition that was the first Tjungurrayi undertook without Lucy, who had died the previous year. The Sydney presentation was opened by Dr Edmund Capon, then Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, reflecting the standing Tjungurrayi had reached by 2004: a painter whose increasingly minimal compositions nonetheless, as the Alcaston Gallery Catalogue put it, "generate a radiant energy which captures the importance of these places not only physically but spiritually."

Catalogues192 of 257

Click to enlarge

Sale 3 · Lot 44

Helicopter Tjungurrayi

b. c.1947

Region: Western Desert
Community: Wirrimanu (Balgo)
Language group: Manyjilyjarra; Kukatja; Wangkajunga (Wangkatjunga, Wangkajungka)

Wangkartu, 2004

synthetic polymer paint on linen

120 x 80 cm

Est. $5,000 – $7,000

Hammer $4,600

Provenance: Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, WA, Cat No. 133/04 Alcaston Gallery, Fitzroy, Vic, Cat No. AK10543 Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Warlayirti Artists and Alcaston Gallery
Exhibited: Yungmantja, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Vic, and Depot Gallery, Sydney, NSW, 6 – 17 July 2004
Artwork story: The single black oval at the centre of Wangkartu marks a tjurrnu, a soakwater in the Kukatja language, and everything in this painting radiates outward from it. The sweeping horizontal bands of orange, burgundy, yellow, and white describe the tali, the great sandhills of the Gibson Desert Country south of Balgo where Helicopter Tjungurrayi was born. When asked about his paintings, Tjungurrayi would gesture fondly toward the southern horizon: "good country, my country." Tjungurrayi did not begin painting independently until 1994, having spent his earlier years working alongside his late wife, the renowned Balgo artist Lucy Yukenbarri. Stephen Williamson, Art Centre Co-ordinator at Warlayirti Artists, described his method from close observation: "He traces the contours of his country with the stroke of a brush. Later he re-traces these steps with the dabbing of the brush to create a mottled rippling surface of texture giving the painting body and depth." That layered surface is legible in Wangkartu: the lines are not flat stripes but built-up ridges, each band revisited and thickened through accumulation. Wangkartu comes from Yungmantja, the 2004 solo exhibition that was the first Tjungurrayi undertook without Lucy, who had died the previous year. The Sydney presentation was opened by Dr Edmund Capon, then Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, reflecting the standing Tjungurrayi had reached by 2004: a painter whose increasingly minimal compositions nonetheless, as the Alcaston Gallery Catalogue put it, "generate a radiant energy which captures the importance of these places not only physically but spiritually."