Tingari Cycle - Walala Tjapaltjarri
Tingari Cycle - Walala Tjapaltjarri
Acrylic on Canvas, 198 x 60 cm
$6,000
Walala Tjapaltjarri is a Pintupi man born in the early 1960's at Marua to the east of Kiwirrkura in the Gibson Desert. Walala arrived out of the desert with eight relatives in October 1984, making headlines as 'the last of the nomads'. Up until this time, the group had been following their traditional lifestyle in the country of Lake Mackay.
Walala may have started painting assisting his brother Warlimpirrnga, instructing him in the use of acrylic paint on canvas. He began to paint his own works in 1986-87.
The subject of Walala's paintings is the 'Tingari Cycle', a creation time when ancestral beings, the Tingari Men, travelled over the Western Desert forming the land and creating rituals. They were followed by initiated novices who were taught laws and ceremonies and also followed by women and children.
The travels of the Tingari are recounted in a multitude of song cycles but most business and knowledge and business of the Tingari remain in a highly secretive domain, privy only to senior men of the appropriate level of society and cannot be disclosed or recounted.
Many of these sacred and mythological songs are associated with the artist's Dreaming sites. Among them are eleven sites located throughout his traditional country near Lake Mackay such as Marau, Minatarpi, Tarkku, Njami and Yarrawangu, including Mina Mina, a significant womens' ceremonial site where his family used to spend time.
Walala has gained world wide recognition, participating in several national and international solo and group exhibitions. His paintings are represented in private and public collections in Australia, Europe and the USA.