Papunya: taking Aboriginal Desert dot designs to the world

Papunya Tula is the legendary site where the contemporary Aboriginal art movement bloomed becoming famous for its Western Desert dot art.  

Amongst the different displaced Western Desert people's brought to Papunya Tula (Tula meaning small hill where a Honey ant dreaming sits) were Tommy Watson, Clifford Possum and Ningura Napurrula, each of whom went on to become wildly successful international artists.  

The original company now operates from Alice Springs but we paid a visit to the existing art centre and found some of the sacred iconography depicted in the early works honoured while developing new interpretations of their ancient Dreamtime stories.

We had to keep a respectful distance while photographing the artists.  Close up the paintings were breathtaking.  Below is the landscape around the art centre.

Snake Vine Dreaming, Yanjirlpiri : contemporary uses of traditional iconography

Ngalypi Jukurrpa Yanjirlpiri, Snake Vine Dreaming, by Geraldine Napangardi Granites

Our Art gallery seeks to showcase the versatility of the contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists, whose brilliant and diverse work is rooted both in the very real modern-day challenges of their culture & their rich heritage. One of these artists is Geraldine Napangardi Granites, who brings her own dynamic, modern painterly interpretation to a traditional subject matter : the Snake Vine Dreaming, or Ngalyipi Jukurrpa. 

The Snake Vine Dreaming Geraldine paints is associated with a specific country in the Australian Central Desert: Yanjirlpiri, or ‘star’ (known as Mt. Nicker), lying to the west of Yuendumu. In Aboriginal culture, Dreamings have specific ‘kirda’ (owners), and in the kirda of this Dreaming are the Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men & Napaljarri/Nungarrayi women. Geraldine is one such Napaljarri/Nungarrayi artist, the daughter of the celebrated artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites and granddaughter of Paddy Japaljarri Sims (dec) and Bessie Nakamarra Sims (Dec): two of Warlukurlangu Artists Artists Aboriginal Corporation founding artists. Born & bred in Yuendumu, she lives locally with her four children and has developed her artistry by observing her grandfather’s art and that of Judy Napangardi Watson, a Warlpiri artist at the forefront of a move towards more abstract rendering of Dreaming stories.

In Snake Vine Dreaming traditional iconography, sinuous lines represent the Ngalyipi (snake vine), and straight lines represent the witi (ceremonial poles) and karlangu (digging sticks). Geraldine's painting pools from this tradition, whilst giving us a visual representation of how intricately interwoven this plant is in the daily physical & spiritual life of its people, and the profoundly interconnected relationship of the Aboriginal people to Country.

The snake vine, or Ngalyipi [Tinospora smilacina]) is found in the trees and shrubs of sandy spinifex plains and sandhills, this green creeper has many uses in daily life and is of great ceremonial importance. The vine is made up into as a shoulder strap to carry parraja (coolamons) and ngami (water carriers), or exploited for its medicinal uses: as tourniquets, and its leaves and vines are used as bandages for wounds. The Warlpiri people sometimes chew the leaves to treat severe colds, or pound the stems into poultices to cure headaches.

The importance of Yanjirlpiri cannot be overemphasized, as the sons and grandsons of Japaljarri and Jungarrayi men are brought here from as far away as Pitjantjatjara country (to the south), and from Lajamanu (to the north) to be initiated. This witi ceremony is performed at night under the stars, during which Napaljarri and Nungarrayi women will dance but then look away and block their ears when it is time for the men dance. In men’s initiations, Ngalyipi is used to tie the witi (ceremonial poles) to the shins of the dancing initiates, and to tie yukurruyukurru (dancing boards) to dancers’ bodies.

You are always welcome to pay a visit to our Art gallery in Tetbury, Gloucestershire or to browse through its digital counterpart in the ART section of this website.

We regularly post blogs on the provenance of our artwork. If you are interested in learning more about Dreamings, do have a read of our blog The Dream before the Art.

Snapshots of our Art Sourcing Trip in the Australian Central Desert

Detail from a painting we will be bringing back to Bay Gallery Home's Gallery, a fine example of the ever-evolving work of contemporary Australian Aboriginal Artists.

On the road to Uluru, after being Fool-uru by Mount Conner...

Here's a detail from Australian Aboriginal Street Art in Papunya, by Candy - a dynamic work of Art that feels full of expression and relevance.

Mount Conner, also called 'Fool-uru' by locals for so often being mistaken for Uluru..

Some of the rich stylistic variety of contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists, each incarnating the Artist's experience and connection with Country, their land and identity heritage.

Our beautiful My Country GREEN wallpaper & Lilly Kemarre Morton's Art : depictions of the Australian bush & botanical landscape after the rains.

Bay Gallery Home's My Country Interior wallpapers, ceramic wall tiles & rugs are a very first in the history of interior design, bringing this beautifully versatile, intricate & joyful aesthetic into interior spaces and decors. 

The venerable Artist behind our wallpaper: Lilly Kemarre Morton, proudly holding one of our My Country interiors brochure.

As we continue on our Art - sourcing trip in Australia we have had the opportunity to meet up with the artists involved in our inaugural Interiors collection and share with them the fruits of this collaboration, and its fantastic reception – namely our WIN Award.

It is one of the most rewarding aspects of this enterprise.

My Country GREEN wallpaper in its full-scale splendour, bringing Art & a touch of colour into interior space. 

The colours of Australia

Detail of local flora from a vibrant painting by Colleen Ngwarraye Morton, 'Women's Ceremony and Bush Medicine' – sold through our ART page & in our Tetbury gallery.

“I feel with my body. Feeling all these trees, all this country. When this blow you can feel it. Same for country... you feel it, you can look, but feeling... that make you.”

– Big Bill Neidjie, Gagudju Elder, Kakadu.

The origins of our art gallery, and now our art-driven interiors collection, is a long-standing personal and professional connection with Central Desert artists. Theirs is an arid land with extensive dry seasons, which is the birthplace of what is sometimes called 'Aboriginal desert painting,' at the forefront of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement.

"The chief function of colour should be to serve expression as well as possible."

Henri Matisse, from "Notes of a Painter"

Within the indigenous Australian cultures and traditions, the artist holds a sacred individual freedom to engage with their own Dreamtime and connection with country, to express a facet of life through a personal choice of brushstroke and form and colour – all the while anchored within the inherited horizon of a collective dream. The use of colours in the contemporary aboriginal art paintings reflect not only the Australian landscape but the world of their imagination, which encompasses past, present and future.

Another detail of local flora from a vibrant painting by Colleen Ngwarraye Morton, 'Women's Ceremony and Bush Medicine' – sold through our ART page & in our Tetbury gallery.

Alice Springs lies at the heart of this region, between the dramatic MacDonnell Ranges and the Todd River. It has historically been a place "crucial to the development of art and as a meeting place, place of exchange and part-time residence for people from the hundreds of Aboriginal communities throughout the central, northern, southern and western regions."* The resilient spirit of its communities, the role they play in political & cultural movements remains very much alive, notably with the iconic annual Desert Mob Art fair.

Throughout, the work of the indigenous artists we represent is a reflection of their personal engagement with a historical and deep spiritual affinity to the land, which they tell and re-tell through art to old and new audiences, layering creation myth upon botanical record, wisdom upon experience, colour upon colour.

Intrepid Alexandra on her current sourcing trip, criss-crossing the Australian Central Desert...

*quote from McCulloch's very excellent Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The Complete Guide.

The dynamic contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art scene

Bay Gallery Home's art dealer Alexandra updates us on her sourcing trip in Australia (whilst here in drizzly March England we can only dream of such sunny colours)...

Michael Nelson Jagamara: Lightning Strikes at Merricks! Michael Nelson Jagamara’s dynamic new sculpture series Lightning Strikes are fabricated in stainless steel, bronze or polyurethane with 2 pac paints in a range of colours. His work is part of the 'Weather Patterns' exhibition currently showing at Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane, until 13th April 2017.

"Yesterday I went to Fortitude Valley in Brisbane to meet gallerists Mike Mitchell of Mitchell Fine Art and Michael Eather of Fireworks Gallery, both Aboriginal Art specialists.

They’ve been in the industry for decades so it was a pleasure to meet them both and see their current exhibitions.

“Weather Patterns II", at Fireworks Gallery, features the work of Matthew Johnson, Rosella Namok and a personal favourite of mine Michael Nelson Jagamara, for whom I had the privilege of doing a sell-out show early on in my career.

Weather Patterns II, featuring the work of Matthew Johnson, Rosella Namok and Michael Nelson Jagamara (featured above), showing at Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane, until 13th April 2017.

 ‘Monochrome’, at Mitchell Fine Art  features the work of hugely talented desert artists such as Dorothy Napangardi, who recently exhibited in the 2015 'Australia' show at the Royal Academy.

Abby Loy Kemarre, Bush Leaves - part of the 'Monochrome' exhibition at Mitchell Fine Art, until 1st April 2017.

If you missed it, the substantial 'Australia' exhibition at the Royal Academy investigated the social and cultural evolution of Australia through its art, from 1800 to the present day. The past two hundred years have seen rapid and intense change, from the colonisation on an indigenous people to the pioneering nation building efforts of the 19th century and the steady urbanisation of the last 100 years.

The exhibition drew on some of Australia's most significant public collections, showcasing the breadth of the landscape and its diverse people through early and contemporary Aboriginal art as well as the work of early colonial settlers & immigrant artists, and some of today’s most established Australian artists.

Here's an more in-depth video of the exhibition, for those with a keen interest!

Christian Thompson - Hanging Australia from Studio Christian Thompson on Vimeo.