Attributed to Timmy Payungu Tjapangati

Ngapa Tjukurrpa (Storm Dreaming)

1971

Created on a linoleum tile, this painting features the snaking designs incised onto sacred objects such as pearlshell pendants and boards. These objects hold deep knowledge and power, including the ability to bring life-giving rain. This motif became a characteristic element of Timmy Payungu’s paintings, which he would expand upon over the next three decades.

His painting touch with the brush has such vitality that his work is unmistakable.

GEOFFREY BARDON

Language Group: Pintupi
Dates: 1935-2000

Timmy Payungu Tjapangati was a Pintupi artist relocated to Papunya from the far reaches of the Western Desert. He was one of the first Pintupi men to start painting. He was also one of the only Pintupi people who could speak Warlpiri and used this skill to promote the exchange of ritual knowledge. His painting Kangaroo and Shield People Dreaming at Lake Mackay (1980), which toured the United States in the exhibition Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia (1988), was illegally appropriated for a carpet design and became a part of a landmark case involving the intellectual property of Aboriginal artists. In 1994, Timmy Payungu had a solo exhibition at the Aboriginal and South Pacific Gallery in Sydney.

Biographical information sourced from Vivien Johnson, Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists. Alice Springs: IAD Press, 2008.

ATTRIBUTED TO TIMMY PAYUNGU TJAPANGATI, Ngapa Tjukurrpa (Storm Dreaming), 1971

Synthetic polymer paint on linoleum tile. 11 3/4 × 12 in. (29.9 × 30.5 cm). Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997. 1993.0008.015.

Timmy Payungu Tjapangati at Yayayi, 1975.

Photo by Fred Myers.

Timmy Payungu Tjapangati straightening spears, near Yunarlanya in the Pollock Hills.

Photo by Fred Myers.

Timmy Payungu Tjapangati using a sharpened tire iron to chip the wood for a making a coolamon.

Photo by Fred Myers.

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