From the Spinifex Country
Part One
2 - 26 October, 2024
Aboriginal & Pacific Art in association with Spinifex Arts Project, Tjuntjuntjara, Western Australia
Front cover image: Ian Rictor, Tjulupi #24-381, Acrylic on linen, 110 x 85 cm
Simon Hogan Lingka #24-374
Acrylic on linen 137 x 140 cm
Ned Grant Papatatjara #23-345
Acrylic on linen
200 x 137 cm
Papatatjara
Ned Grant follows the wata (tree roots) underground as they search for life affirming water sources. He sees them intertwined in the fabric of the significant sites he paints, depicting them as metamorphic beings from creation or as life saving water catchments in times of drought.
This linking with this flora permeates all of Ned’s work as he identifies with the spiritual connection the trees have always possessed across the lands and through eons. Here he brings the significant site of Papatatjara into view with nearby Pikakara and Milpiltjara. It is this area this country that holds the Maku Tjuta Tjukurpa (Witchetty Grub Creation Line) and follows as all the Maku traverse these sites.
These are creation beings and they shape the landscape as they move through it, leaving behind not only the physical environment but the moral framework on which a spiritual life can form. This mapped envrionment and the movement of the first beings is ritually performed with song, as part of the oral transference of culture.
Timo Hogan Lake Baker #24-141
Acrylic on linen
230 x 200 cm
Salt Lake near Tjuntjuntjara. Image Courtesy Spinifex Arts Project, 2024.
Patju Presley Warutjara #24-369
Acrylic on linen
137 x 140 cm
Tjuntjuntjara in bloom, 2024. Image courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.
Ian Rictor Tjilupi #24-381
Acrylic on linen
110 x 85 cm
Ned Grant Papatatjara #23-345
Acrylic on linen
137 x 110 cm
Timo Hogan Lake Baker #24-355
Acrylic on linen
200 x 137 cm
Lake Baker
Timo Hogan does not paint the picture. He paints the story. And the story is the big picture. He calmly applies the paint to Lake Baker with the quiet authority of someone recreating the country they know intimately. For here at Lake Baker, Timo tells of the religion within the landscape and the inhabitants that made it so.
Patju Presley Karukali #24-356
Acrylic on linen
200 x 137 cm
Karukali
Patju Presley paints with the colourful confidence of someone who knows their spiritual place in the landscape. As a child with his immediate family, Patju traversed on foot the arid but bountiful country he paints. Here he depicts the significant site of Karukali which holds the Minyma Witawara Tjukurpa.
These characters that Patju depicts within a living, breathing landscape are the creation beings who shaped the immediate environment as they moved through it, leaving a moral narrative etched into the physical domain as testament to their power and presence. It is both the physical and spiritual existence that cannot be separated for Patju and is what gives his work the transcendent quality we experience from it.
Ned Grant Palpatatjara #24-357
Acrylic on linen
137 x 90 cm
Ned Grant painting Palpatatjara in the Spinifex Arts Project studio, 2024. Image courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.
Ian Rictor Tuwan #24-351
Acrylic on linen
110 x 85 cm
Ian Rictor Tuwan #24-171
Acrylic on linen
137 x 110 cm
Large Works
Lennard Walker Minyma Ngampi #24-380
Acrylic on linen
230 x 200 cm
Lennard Walker painting ‘Minyma Ngampi’ at Spinifex Arts Project in 2024.
Image Courtesy Spinifex
Ngalpingka Sims painting Wayiyul in the Spinifex Arts Project studio in 2023.
Arts Project, 2024.
230 x 200 cm
(Unstretched due to spacial constraints)
Ngalpingka Simms
Wayiyul #23-135
Acrylic on linen
(Unstretched due to spacial constraints)
Lennard Walker Minyma Ngampi #24-380
Acrylic on linen
230 x 200 cm
Sturt’s Desert Pea growing in Tjuntjuntjara, 2024. Image courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.
From the Spinifex Country Part One
Presented by Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney, in association with Spinifex Arts Project, Tjuntjuntjara, Western Australia
2 - 26 October, 2024
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, 1/24 Wellington Street, Waterloo, NSW, 2017 Australia
Ph: +61 2 9699 2211
E: info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au
W: www.aboriginalpacificart.com.au
All images and text copyright the Artists and the community, Spinifex Arts Project, Tjuntjuntjara, Western Australia