Life at Yuwa Dreaming

item details

NameLife at Yuwa Dreaming

ProductionBilly Stockman Tjapaltjarri; artist; 1974; Australia
Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri; artist; 1974

Classificationpaintings

Materialsacrylic paint, canvas

Materials Summaryacrylic on canvas

DimensionsImage: 1715mm (width), 2000mm (height)

Registration Number1992-0035-2382

Credit lineGift of the Australian Government, 1976

Overview

The central feature of this painting is the hill at Yuwa, west of Napperby. Here marks on the rocks are regarded as tracks left by a family group in the Dreaming. The smaller circles are camps, which connect to the hill through radiating lines of travel. Animal and bird totems are represented by their track marks. The painting is divided into men's and women's areas. The bottom right-hand corner depicts the women in domestic camps complete with windbreaks. Elsewhere in the painting young men are being instructed in Aboriginal law.

- from Papuyna Painting, out of the desert, exhibition catalogue, edited by Vivien Johnson, National Museum of Australia Press, 2007

Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri is a founding member of the artist's cooperative Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. This company is entirely owned and directed by traditional Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The aim of the company is to promote individual artists, to provide economic development for the communities to which they belong, and assist in the maintenance of a rich cultural heritage.