Straightening spears at Ilyingaungau
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Pintupi people, Northern Territory
1942 – 2001
Straightening spears at Ilyingaungau
1990
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Place made
- Walungurru (Kintore), Northern Territory
- Geographical location
- Walungurru (Kintore), Northern Territory
- Medium
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Dimensions
-
181.5 x 244.0 x 3.0 cm (Reg Measurement)
181.5 x 244.0 cm - Credit line
- Gift of the Friends of the Art Gallery of South Australia 1990
- Accession number
- 906P17
- Signature and date
- Not signed. Not dated.
- Media category
- Painting
- Collection area
- Australian paintings - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
- Copyright
- © Estate of Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula /Aboriginal Artists Agency
-
Straightening spears at Ilyingaungau conveys the shimmering-hot intensity and infinite distance of the desert country of artist Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. It represents part of a kulata (spear) ancestral story about a large group of men, Tolson’s paternal ancestors, who challenge another group entering the area. The work depicts many spears being prepared for the battle.
The work marked the artistic high point of the career of Tolson, a Pintupi painter who had joined the Western Desert painting movement at Papunya in 1972, the year after it began. Tolson was born in 1942 near Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff) ration depot, hundreds of kilometres from his traditional homeland. Throughout his childhood he learnt Pintupi stories relating to places not seen by him until he was an adult. The small Ilyingaungau claypan was one such place.
Barry Patton, Tarnanthi Writer & Researcher