Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri facts for kids

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri (born in the late 1950s) is a famous Australian Aboriginal artist. He is known as one of the most important Indigenous artists from central Australia.

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri's Early Life

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri was born in the late 1950s. His birthplace was near Lake Mackay, which is east of a place called Kiwirrkurra today. His family were Pintupi people. They lived as hunter-gatherers. This meant they found their own food and moved around a lot. They lived a traditional life and had never met people from outside their community.

When Warlimpirrnga was a young boy, his father passed away. His mother got married again soon after. Around 1980, Warlimpirrnga married his cousin, Yalti. He was the main person who found food for his family. He hunted using spears, mirru (spear-throwers), and boomerangs.

In 1984, when Warlimpirrnga was about 25 years old, he met people from outside his family for the first time. He remembered seeing a white man and thinking, "I couldn't believe it. I thought he was a devil, a bad spirit. He was the colour of clouds at sunrise." A few days later, he and his family settled in Kiwirrkurra. News about this group living traditionally, so far from modern society, became famous around the world.

Becoming an Artist: Painting Style

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri started painting in 1987. He worked with an art company called Papunya Tula. Other artists at the company taught him how to paint. He finished his first painting for them in April 1987.

His first art show was in Melbourne the next year. It showed eleven of his paintings. All of them were bought for the National Gallery of Victoria. Since then, he has become one of the most well-known artists in central Australia.

Warlimpirrnga paints abstract pictures. These pictures tell sacred stories and songs from his family's Dreaming. The stories are about the Tingari. The Tingari are ancestors of the Pintupi people. They are spirit beings believed to have created all living things. His paintings tell stories about his homeland and special sacred sites like Marruwa and Kanapilya.

His artwork often shows detailed patterns that look like maps of sacred places. These include Lake Mackay and Marawa, where his Pintupi ancestors traveled. He creates these patterns using thousands of tiny, thin lines. These lines seem to overlap and come together. This creates a feeling of movement and depth in his paintings. Warlimpirrnga mainly uses colors found in his homeland. These are natural ochres like white, dark red, grey, and sometimes black.

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri's Global Impact

Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri's art is kept in many big public art collections in Australia. You can find his work in the National Gallery in Canberra, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria. His art is also in galleries overseas. For example, it's in the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France. It's also in the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia in the United States. In 2012, his art was shown at the documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany. By 2008, one of his paintings had sold for A$85,000.

Warlimpirrnga became well-known in the United States in September 2015. He was featured in an article on the front page of the New York Times Saturday Arts Page. The article was titled "An Aboriginal Artist's Dizzying New York Moment". A color photo at the top of the article showed him in front of one of his abstract paintings. The painting was displayed at the Bowery gallery. A positive review by critic Randall Kennedy brought him a lot of attention.

In September 2016, one of his paintings sold for £167,000 at Sotheby's in London. In October 2016, he had his first art show by himself in the United States. This show was at the Salon 94 gallery in New York City.

In March 2019, a TV show on Netflix called After Life used a copy of one of Warlimpirrnga's paintings. The show was made by Ricky Gervais. An artist had been asked to make the copy for a props company in 1999. Ricky Gervais's company agreed to pay money for using the copy of the artwork. The original painting was from 1987 and was called Tingarri Dreaming. They also paid a fee to use the artwork in the second season of the show.

Musical Influence

The music of Australian composer Newton Armstrong's 2020 album "The Way to Go Out" was inspired by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri's paintings. Armstrong's music tries to create the same "dense and mesmerising" feeling as the paintings. It also finds a clever way to show Warlimpirrnga's strong focus and attention to detail in sound.

See also

In Spanish: Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri para niños