CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI

Painted at Papunya in 1973
From the collection of Mark Chiswell, former accountant of the Aboriginal Arts Board at the Australia Council (1975-1978)

The painting appears in good condition overall with no visible signs of repairs or restoration. Housed in a plain wooden frame.
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Cf. For other paintings by the artist on the theme of bush foods, see Yam Dreaming, 1972, and Women's Dreaming about Bush Tucker 'Yarlga,' 1973, in Bardon, G. and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, 2004, Melbourne, p.314, painting number 253, and p.376, painting number 330, respectively, illus

Clifford Possum rarely painted works that focus entirely on native plants. The composition of this work, where forms emanate symmetrically from a central roundel, is usually reserved for depictions of the great ancestral fire at Warlugulong, as in Untitled (Fire Dreaming associated with the site of Warlugulong), 1976, illustrated in Johnson, V., The Art of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Gordon and Breach Arts International, Sydney, 1994, p.55, plate 16. However similar radiating shapes representing edible plants are found as details in several of the artist's major works; in, for example, Yuutjutiyungu, 1979 (illustrated in Johnson 2004, pp.108-9) such shapes represent the bush potato, native grasses and bush fruit.
And in Carpet Snake Dreaming, c.1991-92 (illustrated in Johnson 2004, p.179) the clusters of black shapes with white dots represent mulga seeds. In this work the radiating meanders combined with the increased size of the white clusters set against a characteristic muted and mottled ground of dots produces a subtle, almost three dimensional effect.