Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi

Two Tingarri Men Traveling to Kaakurutintjinya (Lake Macdonald)

1992

Best known for his austere works in black and white, Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi’s painting offers a colorful and animated depiction of his desert homelands.

Kaakurutintjinya is associated with a violent story of revenge. After the Tingarri ancestors hunted on his land, Kuninka (the ancestral native Quoll) chases them across the desert. When they reached the salt lake, Kuninka’s sons kill the men with hail and lightning, then turn themselves into snakes. Yala Yala Gibb’s painting does not offer many visual clues to this narrative, but is imbued with the sense of energy and wonder that characterizes Pintupi creation narratives.

Language Group: Pintupi
Dates: 1924–1998

Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi was born near the salt lake Kaakurutintjinya (Lake Macdonald) and was senior custodian for the ancestral narratives of this area. He was an original Papunya Tula Artists shareholder and began to paint at the onset of the movement. He was one of the artists who helped develop the “Tingarri” painting style which applies grids of dotted concentric circles and connecting lines. These conventions would come to define Papuynya men's painting until the early 1990s. He had three children with his first wife, Ningura Napurrula, who was also a painter.

YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI, Two Tingarri Men Traveling to Kaakurutintjinya (Lake Macdonald), 1992

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 60 3/16 × 20 1/8 in. (152.88 × 51.12 cm). Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997. 1991.0036.017.

Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi painting outside Papunya Tula Artists’ Walungurru (Kintore) studio, 1996.

Photo by Paul Sweeney.

Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi painting outside Papunya Tula Artists’ Walungurru (Kintore) studio, 1996.

Photo by Paul Sweeney.

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