BILL TJAPALTJARRI WHISKEY

Pitjantjatjara people joined the Western Desert art movement during the 1990s, somewhat later than other tribes. They resisted the move to painting their sacred Dreaming Stories on canvas, for public display and sale. Perhaps this partly explains why Bill Whiskey developed his own interpretation of the ancient iconography, though keeping within the conventions of the contemporary ‘dot-painting’ style. He came to painting late in life, starting in 2004 when he was in his mid- eighties, but his innovative and lively approach soon generated enthusiasm in the art world. His large, finely dotted, and colourful canvasses were said to reflect his
indomitable spirit, bold and bright, ‘mapping’ his life, his country, and his tradition in his own distinctive voice. Despite his name, Bill was a non-smoking, teetotaller who earned the name Whiskey from his flowing beard and long white whiskers.

Born at Pirupa Alka, close to the stunning mountains and rock formations of the Olgas, Kata Juta, Bill Whiskey walked into the settlement of Haasts Bluff as a young man following the deaths of many of his family and tribe. He was afraid of white people and did not like their food but after some further wanderings, he eventually settled there and married Colleen Nampitjinpa, a Luritja woman with whom he had five children. Bill worked at labouring, mustering, and cooking but the couple were known far and wide as skilled healers (ngangkari) and were greatly respected for their traditional knowledge and authority. It was this knowledge that Bill drew upon when he began painting. He had moved to the outstation of Amunturungu (Mt. Liebig) during the 1980s and so joined the Watiyawanu Artists art centre there. His subjects included his early travels and, a mythic battle that occurred at his birthplace, Pirupa Alka, the scars of which have fashioned the landscape of that area. This is the Cockatoo Dreaming of which Bill Whiskey was the traditional custodian.

This ancestral story involves three birds, the white cockatoo, his friend the eagle and the aggressive black crow that attacked the cockatoo to steal his witchetty grubs. During a terrible battle, white feathers were scattered about, and the landscape indented by the entangled birds crashing to the ground several times. Subterranean streams filled these impressions with water and a circular amphitheatre was created by the sweep of wings. The badly wounded cockatoo was helped by his friend, the eagle. It chased the crow away and brought scraps of kangaroo meat for the injured bird to eat. From a large protruding rock, Katamala Cone, the
eagle still watches the area protectively while a large, central, glowing white rock signifies the fallen cockatoo, still sipping the life-giving water from the sacred pools.

In Whiskey’s works, colourful blues, yellows, reds, and greens, always tempered by cockatoo white, represent the wildflowers that grow in profusion after rain. Like all Dreaming stories, the geographical map-like design incorporates a mythic dimension that tells of human survival in the desert environment through an ancient and resourceful wisdom.

© Baka - Adrian Newstead

References

Grishin, Sasha, Modern, Contemporary Australian and Important Aboriginal Art, Lawson Menzies Art Auction Catalogue, September, Sydney 2008

McCulloch Childs, E. and Gibson, R. New Beginnings, Classic Paintings from the Corrigan Collection of 21st Century Art, McCulloch and McCulloch, Australian Art Books, 2008