Tjunkiya Napaltjarri

Tjunkiya Napaltjarri (also known as Tjunkiya Kamayi, Tjungkiya, Tunkaii Napaltari, Kowai or Kamayi)[1] (c. 1927–2009) was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She is the sister of artist Wintjiya Napaltjarri.

Tjunkiya Napaltjarri
Born1927
North-west of Kintore, Northern Territory
Died2009 (aged 81–82)
NationalityAustralian
Known forPainting

Tjunkiya's paintings are held in major public art collections, including those of the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Life
Haasts Bluff, where Tjunkiya's family first settled after she was born, and where she later painted.

Tjunkiya was born around 1927: the main biographical reference work for the region gives a date of circa 1927;[2] while the Art Gallery of New South Wales suggests circa 1930.[3] The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous Australians operate using a different conception of time, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events.[4]

'Napaljarri' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans.[5][6] Thus 'Tjunkiya ' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.

A Pintupi speaker, Tjunkiya was born in the area northwest of Walungurru (known as Kintore, Northern Territory), near the Western Australian border, and west of Alice Springs), after which her family moved to Haasts Bluff. She became second wife to Toba Tjakamarra, father of one of the prominent founders of the Papunya Tula art movement, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula.[7] At Haasts Bluff she had ten children: these included sons Billy Rowe and Riley Rowe, both of whom painted for Papunya Tula, and daughter Mitjili (born c. 1948), who married Long Tom Tjapanangka and went on to paint at Haasts Bluff.[1] From Haasts Bluff the family moved to Papunya and in 1981 to Kintore.[1][2]

Tjunkiya was the sister of artist Wintjiya Napaltjarri,[8] who was also a wife to Toba.[7] Seriously ill in the mid-1990s,[9] Tjunkiya died in 2009.[3]

Art

Background

Contemporary Indigenous art of the western desert began when Indigenous men at Papunya began painting in 1971, assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon.[10] Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983.[11] By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally.[12] The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting.[13] However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.[12]

Career

Like a number of the other central and western desert women in the region, Tjunkiya was introduced to painting through the Minyma Tjukurrpa (Women's Dreaming) painting project in the mid-1990s.[2] Along with sister Wintjiya and other women, she participated in a painting camp in 1994 which resulted in "a series of very large collaborative canvases of the group's shared Dreamings".[1] Western Desert artists such as Tjunkiya frequently paint particular 'dreamings', or stories, for which they have responsibility or rights.[14] In this case, twenty-five women were involved in planning the works, which included three canvases that were 3 metres square, as well as two that were 3 by 1.5 metres, and Tjunkiya and Wintjiya performed a ceremonial dance as part of the preparations.[13] Tjunkiya and her sister were determined to participate in the project despite cataracts interfering with their vision.[15] Sources differ on when Tjunkiya and her sister Wintjiya had the cataracts removed: Vivien Johnson implies around 1999,[7] but art centre coordinator Marina Strocchi, who worked closely with the women, states that both had the operation in 1994.[16]

In the early 2000s she and her sister painted at Kintore, but in 2008 they were working from their home: "the widows' camp outside her 'son' Turkey Tolson's former residence".[1] Tjunkiya and her sister Wintjiya did not confine their activities to painting canvases. The National Gallery of Victoria in 2001 purchased a collaborative batik work, created in 1994 by the sisters in cooperation with several other artists, together with a work completed by Tjunkiya alone.[17] The sisters also worked using drypoint etching, with 2004 a print by Tjunkiya – Rumiya kutjarra #2 – held by the National Gallery of Australia.[18][19]

Works by Tjunkiya are held in major private collections, such as Nangara (also known as the Ebes Collection).[20] Her work has been acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales,[3][21] the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and the Northern Territory Supreme Court.[1] Works by both Tjunkiya and her sister Wintjiya are traded in the auction market, fetching prices of a few thousand dollars.[22]

In 1996, Tjunkiya was represented in the Papunya Women group exhibition at Utopia Art Gallery in Sydney,[21] while in 2000 she had an exhibition at Melbourne's William Mora Galleries and was included in the Art Gallery of New South Wales' major exhibition, Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius.[1]

Collections

References
  1. Johnson, Vivien (2008). Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists. Alice Springs, NT: IAD Press. p. 305. ISBN 978-1-86465-090-7.
  2. Birnberg, Margo; Janusz Kreczmanski (2004). Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region. Marleston, South Australia: J.B. Publishing. p. 221. ISBN 1-876622-47-4.
  3. "Wintjiya Napaltjarri and Tjunkiya Napaltjarri – Women travelling to Pinari and Watanuma rockholes". Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art > Paintings. Art Gallery of New South Wales. 1997. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  4. Birnberg, Margo; Janusz Kreczmanski (2004). Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region. Marleston, South Australia: J.B. Publishing. pp. 10–12. ISBN 1-876622-47-4.
  5. "Kinship and skin names". People and culture. Central Land Council. Archived from the original on 12 October 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  6. De Brabander, Dallas (1994). "Sections". In David Horton (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. 2. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. p. 977. ISBN 978-0-85575-234-7.
  7. Johnson, Vivien (2008). Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists. Alice Springs, NT: IAD Press. p. 307. ISBN 978-1-86465-090-7.
  8. Perkins, Hetti; Margie West (2007). One Sun One Moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia. Sydney, NSW: Art Gallery of New South Wales. ISBN 978-0-7347-6360-0.
  9. Rothwell, Nicholas (28 November 2006). "Decade of sunshine and tears". The Australian. Retrieved 5 January 2010.
  10. Bardon, Geoffrey; James Bardon (2006). Papunya – A place made after the story: The beginnings of the Western Desert painting movement. University of Melbourne: Miegunyah Press. ISBN 0-522-85110-X.
  11. Dussart, Francoise (2006). "Canvassing identities: reflecting on the acrylic art movement in an Australian Aboriginal settlement". Aboriginal History. 30: 156–168.
  12. Morphy, Howard (1999). Aboriginal Art. London: Phaidon. pp. 261–316. ISBN 0-7148-3752-0.
  13. Strocchi, Marina (2006). "Minyma Tjukurrpa: Kintore / Haasts Bluff Canvas Project: Dancing women to famous painters". Artlink. 26 (4).
  14. Johnson, Vivien (1994). "Introduction". Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary. Roseville East, NSW: Craftsman House. pp. 7–12. ISBN 976-8097-81-7.
  15. Finnane, Kieran (1997). "From first canvas to national collections in three years". Artlink Magazine. 17 (4). Archived from the original on 21 September 2010. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  16. Strocchi, Marina (2008). "Before Painting: The Kintore Batiks". In Judith Ryan (ed.). Across the Desert: Aboriginal batik from Central Australia. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 130–134. ISBN 978-0-7241-0299-0.
  17. Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria (2002). Annual Report 2001–2002 (PDF). Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria. p. 72. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  18. Napaltjarri, Tjunkiya. "Rumiya kutjarra #2 2004". Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art. National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  19. Napaltjarri, Wintjiya. "Nyimpara 2004". Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art. National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
  20. "The artists". Nangara: the Australian Aboriginal art exhibition. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  21. "Two women dreaming at Witjilki". Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art > Paintings. Art Gallery of New South Wales. 1997. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  22. "Auction results: Deutscher & Hackett – Important Aboriginal Art". Australian Art Collector. 25 March 2009. Archived from the original on 28 September 2009. Retrieved 28 August 2009.

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