Lot 122: KAYILI ARTISTS Synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas

222.5 by 210.5 cm

Power an Beauty: Indigenous Art Now, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Victoria, 2007, illus.

Painted for Kayili Artists, Western Australia in 2005

Kayili Artists is the local art centre for the Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra people at Patjarr (Karilywarra) in the Gibson Desert, a community located some 250 kms north of Warburton, in Western Australia. The art centre was established in 2004.

The artists of the Gibson Desert have been painting in the public domain for a few short years. They form part of the Western Desert cultural bloc, and their art is consistent with the visual language popularized initially by the artists at Papunya from the early 1970s. The conventional graphic lexicon of desert art is evident here, based on sets of roundels or concentric circles indicating place, and lines that join them indicating travel or paths. Artists tend to favour high key, saturated colour, and, as in this case, informal compositions, to create exuberant, pulsating visual surfaces

Yunpalara (Lake Blair), 2005 is a collaboration between twelve senior artists at Kayili. The painting describes an epic ancestral chronicle concerning the Ngirntaka Tjukurrpa (Perentie Dreaming) and the giant goanna's encounter with a large group of Karlaya (Emu ancestors). Ngirntaka was at Yunpalara, a large claypan surrounded by sandhills to the west of Patjarr. The Perentie, who originally came from the area now known as Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, created the site of Yunpalara with a sweep of his large tail. At Tjinytjira, west of Patjarr, the Emu ancestors had gathered from far and wide to conduct ceremonies. Fearing he had been insulted by the Emu ancestors, Ngirntaka attacked the group and dispersed them across the landscape

Kayili Artists accompanying notes outlining the circumstances of the creation of this work read as follows:

"Yunpalara (Lake Blair) a large claypan in the Gibson Desert Nature Reserve is Coiley Campbell's country. The Reserve was the destination for the first of several painting trips during June and July of 2005 and although it was to be a ladies group painting, it was Mr Campbell who applied the first marks to canvas, turning into the centre piece, the concentric circle in the middle. Initially, not a lot of painting happened but there was lots of hunting. The ladies all worked from the edge inwards and it was Ngipi Ward who broke out and stretched her coloured tentacles towards the centre.

The work started to take more shape on the second week long camp at Mina Mina, about 15 km from Patjarr. After a week at Mina Mina the clouds rolled in and it was a black horizon. Camp was packed up quickly, everything was thrown in the back of the troopie and the trailer, and any car that was there, the painting was thrown on top, wet with paint and tied to the trailer.

Back in Patjarr it started to rain just as we arrived. The rain settled in for three days. The canvas was unrolled in the old tin house used as an Art Centre. Two light globes where installed, blankets where brought in, the heater was taken from the office, the doors and windows where closed, ladies came and went from the building.

After three days the rain passed and the winter desert sky was crystal clear and the sun was at its watery best. From the closed doors of the art centre emerged a nearly finished painting followed by excited ladies. A sheltered place in the sun next to an empty shed was found, the painting was laid out and all hands were on deck. Over a period of three months and several trips to different country, the work was completed to the smell of cooking chops and smiling proud faces".