Aubrey Tjangala
Aubrey Tjangala
BORN
1974, YAYI YAYI OUTSTATION, NT
COUNTRY
PINTUPI
COMMUNITY
KINTORE, NT
LANGUAGE
PINTUPI
About
Aubrey Tjangala was born in 1974 at Yayi Yayi, a Pintupi outstation 30km west of Papunya. Yayi Yayi was a temporary settlement established by Pintupi people as they began their migration back into the Western Desert during the homelands movement of the 1970s. After returning to his home Country, Aubrey lived at his father’s outstation, Ininti, before settling in Kintore where he resides today.
Aubrey is the son of the famous artist Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, whose works appear in the collections of major institutions around the world. Ronnie was a pioneering artist in the Western Desert art movement, as well as an important political figure in the land rights movement. Aubrey paints in the tradition of his father, having studied under the master over the course of his life.
A traditional owner for the Country surrounding Kintore, Aubrey paints the Dreaming stories of the area including Minma Kutjarra Tjukurrpa (Two Travelling Women), Ngintaka Tjukurrpa (Perentie) and the Waru Tjukurrpa (Fire) at Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay).
WORK
This painting depicts designs associated with the site Walungurru (Kintore), set deep in the Western Desert. During ancestral times, Ngintaka (Perentie) travelled to this site from the west where he died and turned to stone, becoming the prominent mountain that marks the community.
The site is also associated with the secret-sacred Tingari Song Cycle, the contents of which are only known to initiated Pintupi. Although the specific stories are closely guarded, the Tingari in general are a group of ancestral Dreaming beings who travelled the country, performing rituals and creating and transforming significant sites. Their adventures are enshrined in numerous song cycles, and their stories form part of initiatory teachings.
Aubrey’s strong use of line and repetition rendered in a restrained monochrome palette creates a mesmerising optical effect, allowing the viewer to follow the tracks of the Ngintaka to his final resting place.
