Late 20th Century Attributed to Ronnie Tjampitjinpa Aboriginal Acrylic on Linen

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Description

Artist: Attributed to Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
Title: Unknown
Size:h:27” x w:27” framed
Medium/Ground: Acrylic on Linen
Year Created:Unknown
Signature:Signed on back … Read more Artist: Attributed to Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
Title: Unknown
Size:h:27” x w:27” framed
Medium/Ground: Acrylic on Linen
Year Created:Unknown
Signature:Signed on back left side of linen. Was cut through signature. Half is visible.
Condition:Image is very good, frame has some paint loss.
Description: Framed
Bio:Ronnie Tjampitjinpa was born at Muyin, deep in sandhill country, just west of the Northern Territory/Western Australian border.  He was initiated at Yumari, a rockhole associated with his uncle, the artist Uta Uta Tjangala.  Later that year Tjampitjinpa's family was surprised when a relative, Charlie Wartuma Tjungurrayi, appeared from the east leading a group of camels.  Wartuma persuaded the group to return with him to experience life at the mission-run ration station at Haasts Bluff.  And so it was that in 1956, Tjampitjinpa came into contact with the intercultural world that lay outside the dunefields of the Gibson Desert.

Tjampitjinpa was among the youngest men to be involved during the first flush of painting at Papunya.  However, instead of pursuing a career as an artist he chose to direct his considerable energy into operating an old red truck, running people and supplies to Yai Yai, 40 kilometers west of Papunya, an outstation where his people could escape the stresses of settlement life.  Tjampitjinpa only recommenced painting after his return to Kintore in the early 1980's.

Based on his home country, Tjampitjinpa assumed additional ritual authority, at the same time the demand for Pintupi paintings was increasing. (1)  His compositions grew in confidence and scale; by the end of the decade his signature style was apparent.  Unlike the circles of most Western Desert artists, the concentric forms in Tjampitjinpa's mature works are commenced with an oval or attenuated rectangular form.  These forms are built upon methodically with contrasting bands of colour that pulse and jostle for space.

Tjampitjinpa's works are declarations of his unquestioned ceremonial authority in which optical effect is writ large.  Tjampitjinpa's works resonate with an architectural presence comparable to those of the young Frank Stella, utterly masculine and uncompromisingly assertive. 

John Kean (1) Daphne Williams in conversation with Sarita Quinlivan, in Unique Perspectives: Papunya Tula Artists and the Alice Springs community, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, 2012, p. 77. See less