There is a mysterious, entrancing nature to these paintings, where time and place are melded in the eternal stories of Ronnie's Dreaming. He can be considered one of the first major artists to have linked the painting of these 'song-lines' or 'travelling Dreamings' with the use of modern materials.
Biography
Ronnie was born around 1942-'43 at Tjiturrunya, about 100 kilometres west of the Kintore Ranges in Western Australia. In his youth he and his family travelled extensively across Pintupi territory and around Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). He was initiated into manhood in Winparku, near Lake Mackay.
After the droughts of the 1950's the family moved to Haasts Bluff and then to Papunya. In Papunya he worked as a labourer, helping with the fencing of the airfield, and began painting around 1971 in the first year of the Papunya Tula artists movement. His work first appeared in the Papunya Tula exhibitions of the 1970's. Since then, he has been considered a major artist of the Western Desert.
When the Kintore Community was established in 1981 it was the first permanent resettlement of the Pintupi in their own country. Ronnie moved there with his family shortly after its establishment, and soon became a prominent member of the community. In 1988, he won the Alice Springs Art Prize, and his first solo exhibition was held in Melbourne in 1989. Ronnie's work was later selected for inclusion in major representative Aboriginal survey shows.
The Paintings
Stories from the Tingari Cycle, a secret song cycle sacred to initiated men, are the subject of many of Ronnie's paintings.
The Tingari are a group of ancestral spirit or Dreamtime beings who brought law and culture to the people of the Western Desert, travelling over vast distances. In the course of their many adventures and misadventures, they performed ceremonies to create or even become the physical features of the sites they visited, such as rocky outcrops, waterholes, trees, salt lakes, and ochre deposits.
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa's work is highly characteristic of Pintupi art, using simple, bold, geometric designs, often made up of maze-like circles or a central bull's-eye connected by strong lines. There is a mysterious, entrancing nature to these paintings, where time and place are melded in the eternal stories of Ronnie's Dreaming. Their complexity may not always be clear to the outsider, but they reward further study. Ronnie can be considered one of the first major artists to have linked the painting of these 'song-lines' or 'travelling Dreamings' with the use of modern materials.
Exhibitions
Ronnie's works first appeared in Papunya Tula exhibitions during the 1970s, then in commercial art galleries in Sydney and Melbourne throughout the 1980s, including successive exhibitions at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi from 1987 to 1990. In 1988, he won the Alice Springs Art Prize and had his first solo exhibition in Melbourne in 1989.
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa's work is represented in many public galleries and private collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia and all Australian State galleries. His work is also held outside Australia in many private and public collections.
Sources
Bardon, Geoffrey & Bardon, James: Papunya: A Place Made After The Story (Miegunyah Press, 2004)
Graham Lloyd D: The Nature and Origins of the Tingari Cycle, (AusAnthrop 2002)
Johnson, Vivien: Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary (Crafstman House, 1994)
Kleinert, Sylvia & Neale, Margo (eds.): The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Kreczmanski, Janusz B & Birnberg, Margo (eds.): Aboriginal Artists: Dictionary of Biographies: Central Desert, Western Desert & Kimberley Region (JB Publishing Australia, Marleston, 2004)
