Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula

Tjangimanta

2011

This painting references Tjangimanta, a soakage water source with stony hills and rocks located northeast of the community of Kiwirrkurra. In the Tjukurrpa, a large group of ancestral Tingarri men visited this place during their travels east.

A fascinating aspect of Tjupurrula’s unique painting style is that he uses one of two opposing palettes. Each painting begins along a primed red ground where the tracks of ancestral men’s journeys are outlined in solid black brushstrokes. It is at this point that his paintings take on one of two distinctly different tonal ranges. Vivid orange, red and yellow outcroppings are nestled amongst bold shapes of purple and white. His brushstrokes are meticulous, dabbing and dragging the paint, he works the paint into shapes that are at once ordered and chaotic. In complete contrast he creates works using soft muted white, yellow, pink and purple. By delicately scratching fine elusive marks, he painstakingly works up larger expanses of ground.

NICI CUMPSTON, Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of South Australia

Language Group: Pintupi
Dates: 1930-2016

Johnny Yungut was born in the vicinity of Tjangimanta, Northeast of the Kiwirrkura Community. His brother was the well-known artist Donkeyman Lee Tjupurrula, who painted for Warlayirti Artists at Wirrimanu (Balgo). Their parents were Tjititjiti Tjakamarra and Yirtartirri Napaltjarri. In the early 1950s, the family made the long trek to Balgo Mission where his brother and sister stayed. Johnny, however, returned to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) with his parents. In 1957 he encountered the anthropologist Donald Thomson, who encouraged the group to move to Haasts Bluff Mission, where Johnny would marry his second wife Walangkura Napanangka. In 1959, they were relocated to Papunya. Johnny and Walangkura had six children, including the painters Debra and Katherine Nakamarra. Johnny first started painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1978, however he moved frequently between areas like Wilkinkarra (Lake MacKay), Papunya, Yuendumu, Balgo, and where the Kiwirrkura Community now stands. He only resumed painting for the company at Kiwirrkurra in 1991. Johnny was the last surviving man of his generation from his area, and as a result, held authority for a large number of Tjukurrpa to the west of Kiwirrkurra. In his later years, Johnny Yungut forged a highly individual style, scratching the surface of the canvas with the metal ferrule of his brush. His works are held in the National Gallery of Victoria and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College.

JOHNNY YUNGUT TJUPURRULA, Tjangimanta, 2011

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 24 × 215/8 in. (61 × 55 cm). Commissioned by Richard Klingler and Jane Slatter for Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past and Present Together.

Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula.

Photo by Paul Sweeney.

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