TIM LEURA TJAPALTJARRI

Painted at Papunya in 1971
Painting number 5, consignment 6 to the Stuart Art Centre, Alice Springs
Private collection, Northern Territory

Bardon, G., and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, p.197, painting 102 for a full page illustration of this work, together with a copy of the original field note and drawing by Geoffrey Bardon.

There are no chips to the board and the painted surface area appears to be without sratches. The work is in very good condition consistent with age and use.
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In Geoffrey Bardon's most recent publication he renames this work Rain Ceremony Dreaming and notes that it was painted in April 1972. This is almost certainly incorrect as the consigment number indicates that the work was completed in 1971. Bardon describes the iconography as follows: "In an hieratic arrangement with a central ceremonial stick and symmetrical arched wind breaks containing bush tucker, a rain ceremony is being conducted; the ceremony tells the story of lighting preluding rain, indicated by the curved 'S' motif, where the Ceremonial Men sit with music sticks indicated by the 'U' shapes and enclosed short parallel shapes. Stone axes, ceremonial objects and bullroarers are indicated for the ceremony and caves of the region are indicated by the white concentric circles. The central main concentric circle is a sand mosaic over which stands the ceremonial stick, the dotting here representing a multitude of bush flies.' (ibid.)