GEORGE (TJAMPU) TJAPALTJARRI | KARPADI

Painted at Kiwirrkurra in 2002, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

The Helen Read Collection, France

George Tjampu Tjapaltjarri began painting for the Papunya Tula Artists cooperative in 1982, at about the same time he first met Helen Read, the vendor of Karpadi, 2002. At the time he was a skilled health worker in the Pintupi Homelands Health Service that Read had joined as a pilot, nurse and midwife. They would fly between the Walungurru (Kintore) and Kiwirrkurra communities over country that, according to Read, ‘he didn’t need a plane to see’ and an enduring relationship ensued.

Years later, after she had acquired the painting, Read returned to Kiwirrkurra where Tjapaltjarri described the creation narrative that underscores the work. ‘That’s Karpadi’, he said, ‘ Karpadi is the creation snake which travelled underground in the beginning of time from east to west across the land, under and over the country creating the world, animals, everything we know…Here he is, lying in the sand, camouflaged, resting.’

Rhythm and movement are the hallmarks of Tjapaltjarri’s paintings. As Read says, ‘an onlooker might also feel the multiple angles in the picture, cast like a net, speak of our existence trapped in complete connectivity. And the sharp and soft, flat and undulating cusps anchoring changes in direction [of the lines] ignite a reference to time.’

A related painting by the artist from 2004 is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

Wally Caruana

Sotheby's would also like to thank Helen Read for her contribution to this text.