Tingari - Desert Men

Tingari Creation stories were both the source and the inspiration for the Desert art movement that emerged from the Elders at Papunya settlement in the early 1970s. Senior men were deeply connected to the spiritual world of Tingari, the Law and the creative essence of desert life. This knowledge sustained and informed traditional culture in the Central and Western Desert.

Generations of Elders have brought the knowledge of Tingari to the artwork that they created over the past fifty years of the modern Desert art movement. Three artists from this exhibition were born in the 1930s and witnessed the massive changes that occurred in desert life during the middle of the 20^th century. Those artists are Barney Campbell Tjakamarra, Dr George Tjapaltjarri and Long Jack Phillipus. George Ward Tjungurrayi was born a bit later around 1945 but was closely associated to the Papunya art Movement. Younger artists Walala and Thomas Tjapaltjarri although born in the 1960s, actually stayed out in the desert until 1984 when their family group finally came in to the settlements on the edge of the desert to meet with long lost clan and family members.

The paintings in the exhibition Tingari – Desert Men reflect some of the elements of that great transformation in Aboriginal culture, and show the resilience of tradition culture to hold on to the great sustaining values of Tingari.