T
he cross-cultural collaboration Tim Johnson (b.1947), enjoyed with the founding masters of the Papunya Tula painting movement in Central Australia demonstrated to the artist that art and life, for Aboriginal people are one. By the time Johnson began visiting Papunya in the 1980s, the Western Desert painting movement from Kintore, Yuendumu, Utopia, Balgo and as far west as the East Kimberley, along with counterparts in Arnhem Land, had infiltrated the national imagination, and was by then firmly entrenched in the Australian art scene. As Patrick McCaughey pointed out: ‘The art of the Western Desert, Arnhem Land and the Kimberley became the face of Australia.’ 12
As the artist recalls: ‘In 2002 the National Portrait Gallery commissioned me to paint a portrait of Clifford... Using my own photos for reference, I placed Clifford in the centre, painting my response to his presence rather than to his appearance. He was an incandescent and charismatic man. Around him I placed items that were familiar and important to him – such as his relatives, sites related to his Dreamings and his traditional weapons spear, woomera, shield and boomerang.’ 13
During Tim Johnson’s visits to Papunya, the former performance artist was invited by his Aboriginal friends to paint sections of certain works and assist with the task of dotting. This led to approximately thirty collaborations over the next twenty years. The collaborations eventually led to the use of dots in his own paintings, and the notion of narrative or mapping as a driving pictorial force behind the work. Artists Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, and Michael Nelson Tjakamarra, along with other senior figures gave Johnson the go-ahead to borrow Aboriginal designs on the proviso that the custodianship of the story remain with its Aboriginal owner. Through long interactions with Indigenous artists, Johnson began to grasp the deep significance of Country along with the custodianship of sacred places. This empathy is evident in the artist’s portrait of his friend, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, 2002.
Tim Johnson b.1947 Sydney, NSW Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri 2002
oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas 152.5 x 114.8 cm
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2002
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