WARNARRINGA JAPARRA AMINTIYA JAPALINGA – SUN, MOON & STARS
14.06.2023—
15.07.2023
Warnarringa, Japarra, Amintiya, Japalinga – Sun, Moon & Stars brings together three Jilamara artists across generations, sharing cultural knowledge through the process of making contemporary artworks.
Established artists Timothy Cook and Conrad Tipungwuti present a suite of impressive new earth pigment paintings on linen that articulate the Tiwi Kulama ceremony.
Alongside these bold gestural works, young emerging artist Walter Brooks exhibits a collection of figurative ironwood carvings of the Tiwi creation story characters and the first Pukumani ceremony.
The mythic immensity of the Tiwi Dreamings take form in the spiritual actuality of Cook, Tipungwuti and Brooks’s artwork in this exhibition. Together, the collection of new paintings on linen and ironwood carvings offer an insight into the longstanding living culture of Tiwi artmaking and ceremonial practice on the islands.
The concentric circles of 'Kulama' that are front and centre of this exhibition represent the coming together of Tiwi people in a ceremonial space to acknowledge ancestry and share living culture with younger generations. ”
— Will Heathcote, Jilamara Arts & Crafts Coordinator
Cook and Tipungwuti depict parlingarri jilamara ‘old designs’ which they have learnt from growing up with the wulimawi (old people). These are the unique and striking combinations of kurluwukari (circles), pwanga (dots) and marlipinyini (lines) that make up jilamara (body paint design) and the complex visual culture of the Tiwi people.
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Despite his young age, Brooks has been mentored by Senior carver Patrick Freddy Puruntatameri to carve in the old way. His carvings of Purukuparli, Japarra and Jinani evoke the Tiwi creation story that turned Tiwi people from immortal beings to humans.
In a time dominated by so much sorry business and an uneasy political climate, now it seems more important than ever to celebrate the coming together of intergenerational groups of artists like this to learn and share through the process of art-making.”
— Will Heathcote
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