“Kulintjarra Tingari Cycle” – Acrylic on canvas

Artist: JACKIE KURLTJUNYINTJA GILES TJAPALTJARRI

Cat#: PGPT035

Size: 91 x 61

Medium: Painting

Jackie has stated: ” My umbilical cord fell off at Marapinti, near Kiwirrkurra (in Western Australia) – no roads, no cars, nothing. My (other) father, Walurti used to carry me on his back and shoulders as we travelled. I went to Warakurna and later to Warburton where I met my wife, Norma”.
Jackie was one of the great Western Desert Marpans, or healers and a respected lawman. As such he had special responsibilities for maintenance of the Law and the rites and rituals associated with his community’s place and role in the Dreaming. It has been reported that non-Aboriginal doctors were reluctant to travel to remote communities without his presence ‘because their health results were always significantly better when Jackie was with them’. Jackie began painting without any painting implements, just acrylic paint, his fingers and hands and anything at hand that might be useful.
Notwithstanding, Jackie has become one of the greatly respected artists based at the Kiyili Community.
This is one of his smaller paintings – many were created on a very large scale and collected by major collectors and institutions – and it feature all of the qualities in his greatest works. It is a wonderful ‘shorthand’ painting of country and the subterranean water system with which he was both intimately familiar and for which he carried great responsibility.