Ray James Tjangala

Yunarla

2021

In the Tjukurrpa, a group of ancestral men known as the Tingarri ancestors camped at a place called Yunarla before continuing their journey to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). While they camped here, they gathered the edible roots of the bush banana or silky bear, which is also known as yunarla.

Language Group: Pintupi
Date: c. 1958

Ray James Tjangala is the son of Yanatjarri Tjampitjinpa, one of the early painters of the Papunya Tula movement. Under his father's instruction, Ray first tried painting in 1987. However, it was not until the mid 1990s that Ray emerged as one of the core group of second-generation artists at Kiwirrkurra. Ray has appeared in numerous group exhibitions and has work in the collections of the Flinders University Art Museum and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Ray travelled to the US for the Icons of the Desert exhibition at the Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell University in 2009, where he–along with Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri and Bobby West Tjupurrula–prepared a large ground work for the show.

RAY JAMES TJANGALA, Yunarla, 2021

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 24 × 21 5/8 in. (61 × 55 cm). Commissioned by Richard Klingler and Jane Slatter for Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past and Present Together.

Ray James Tjangala in Aspen, Colorado, 2015.

Photo by Paul Sweeney, courtesy of Papunya Tula Artists.

Ray James Tjangala.

Ray James Tjangala working on the ground work at Icons of the Desert at the Herbert Johnson Museum and Cornell University, 2009.

Photo by Fred Myers.

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