Artwork Information

Thomas Tjapaltjarri was born at Marruwa west of Lake Mackay (Wilkinarra), 800km west of Alice Springs, in the Gibson Desert in 1955. Thomas was a member of the last group of Pintupi people to come in from the Gibson Desert of Western Australia in 1984. He was one of a party of nine Pintupi tribesmen who made their first contact with non-Aboriginal people when they walked out of the desert west of Lake Mackay into the small Kiwirrkura community, just inside the Western Australian border. Three years later, along with his brothers, he began painting for Papunya Tula Artists and is now considered a leading Western Desert artist.

 

Thomas is brother to Walala Tjapaltjarri and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri and both are painters of international acclaim. Thomas' paintings are in a classical Tingari style usually reserved for body painting, ground painting and the decoration of traditional artefacts.

 

Stories, or Dreamings, of the Tingari Cycle are an important body of myth concerning the Tingari ancestors of the creative Dreamtime period. During the creation era, Tingari ancestors gathered at a series of sites for Initiation Ceremonies. They traveled from across the country, performing rituals at specific sites that created the natural features of the landscape. The creation stories and rituals are still portrayed in song cycles, paintings and ceremonies and are part of the continuous teaching to the next generation. In painting Tingari Cycle, Thomas Tjapaltjarri is depicting the song cycle associated with the artists many dreaming sites and the locations of significant natural sites in the Gibson Desert.

 

 

2008 Indigenous Fine Art Stock Room Sale, Desert Rain Gallery, Noosa

2008 'Tjapaltjarri Brothers: The Last Nomads', Central Art Aboriginal Art Store, Alice Springs

2007 'Christmas 2007', Central Art Aboriginal Art Store, Alice Springs