Tingarri Dreaming
1986
- Medium
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Measurements
- 182.5 × 121.6 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Papunya, Northern Territory
- Inscription
- inscribed on reverse: CAT. No: DC 861136
- Accession Number
- O.20-1987
- Department
- First Nations Australia
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1987
© The Artist/Licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Limited
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation - Gallery location
- Gallery 11
Level 2, NGV Australia - About this work
-
Born around 1942, Dini Campbell Tjampitjinpa travelled extensively across Pintupi Country with his family. As a young adult, he worked as a stockman in Balgo before travelling to Papunya around 1980, where he first witnessed men painting with acrylic on board and canvas. By then, men had been painting in Papunya for around a decade, slowly generating interest from the Western art world. It was movements such as this from Papunya that instigated the rapid development of First Nations art collections in state galleries around the continent. Tingarri Dreaming is a recurrent narrative explored by Tjampitjinpa; a story of creation that follows the contours and whispers of his Country. Like many artists of the Papunya Tula school, Tjampitjinpa was weary when painting and discussing his artworks, careful not to expose sacred knowledge to uninitiated audiences. It is this tension – between fine art and cultural knowledge – that dominated the aesthetic consciousness of the Australian art world in the 1970s and 80s.