YALA YALA GIBBS TJUNGURRAYI

Painted at Yuendumu in July 1979
Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs
Private collection

The painting appears in good and stable condition with no visible repairs or restoration.
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Cf. For other paintings in this genre see Anatjari Tjampitjinpa's Tingarri Men and Initiates at Marabindinya (Marrapintinya), 1981, in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, in Johnson, V. (ed.), Papunya painting, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2007, pp.97, 109, and Ceremonial ground at Kulkuta, 1981, in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, in Perkins, H. and H. Fink (eds.), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales in association with Papunya Tula Artists, Sydney, 2000, p.107; and Timmy Payangka Tjapangarti's Tingari Story, 1975, in Johnson 2007, p.60, and Kangaroo and Shield People Dreaming at Lake Mackay, 1980, in Perkins and Fink, 2000, p.86, illus.

From 1975 to 1981 a number of senior Pintupi artists developed iconic images of the vast landscapes traversed by the great Tingari ancestors. Untitled, 1979, is characteristic of these compositions which feature a matrix of concentric circles, representing specific ceremonial sites, joined by lines indicating the ancestors' journeys. These complex but graphically minimal compositions reflect the esoteric nature of the Tingari, the law and ritual they established and the land they created. Two years after Untitled, 1979, was painted, Yala Yala collaborated with other Pintupi painters to produce two of the widely recognized masterpieces of this genre: with Charlie Tjapangarti and John Tjakamarra on Tingari Dreaming, 1981, and with Uta Uta Tjangala and others on Yumari, 1981. Both works are in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, (Johnson 2007, pp.98, and Perkins and Fink, 2000, pp.90-1, respectively, illus.).

Untitled, 1979, depicts a series of ancestral sites, focused on Kutulyu, which were visited by the Tingari in an engagement with Kuninka, the ancestral Marsupial Mouse. As they travelled through the land, the Tingari staged a series of initiation ceremonies, the principal of which was held at a specific teaching place called Kanala, at Kutulyu. Kanala is rendered as the main set of concentric circles surrounded by seven U-shapes, representing men, at the centre left of the painting. The Tingari often travelled underground to emerge at other important sites, here depicted as the other sets of roundels. The smaller roundels around the periphery of the painting indicate ritual body painting designs. The background dotting refers to ritual objects, body painting and plant foods

This painting is sold with an accompanying Papunya Tula Artists certificate