Dreams of life and death

Aboriginal Art Directory | 04.11.08

Author: Nicolas Rothwell
News source: The Australian

A wonderful article by Nicholas Rothwell about Wingu Tingima:

For who, among the legions of keen collectors tracking the most admired Aboriginal art star of the western desert, Wingu Tingima, knows anything about her life and the way her mythscapes shape her days? Who hears about her intense, prophetic dreams or the way they become real, and dream beings come thrusting into the fabric of her world?

Wingu, 80, bird-like in her manner, hard of hearing and self-possessed, has been living in recent months at the tiny desert community of Irrunytju, close to Surveyor General's Corner, the point where the frontiers of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory meet.

The settlement lies amid the scrub and spinifex, in the lee of low ranges: a scatter of houses, an airstrip, a school and store. Beside its tranquil workshop buildings, wild camels graze undisturbed. On the red-sand roadways, camp dogs patrol, children play, and ancient Toyotas, in various states of disrepair, await.

It was death that brought Wingu back to this old haunt of hers: nightmares, death and strong convictions about the spirit world. At the ramshackle Irrunytju art centre, surrounded by several bright-coloured canvases in mid-composition, she tells the tale, while her son, Winmati Roberts, a man of good looks and charm, sits close by, listening, intent.

URL: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24596002-5013172,00.html

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Contact Details

Gallery: Irrunytju Gallery
Email: irrunytjuarts@bigpond.com
Telephone: +61 8 8956 7783
Address: PMB 52 via Alice Springs Wingellina Wingellina 0872 NT

Gallery: Tjungu Palya Artists
Contact: Mel Henderson
Email: arts@tjungupalya.org.au
Telephone: +61 8 8956 7111
Address: Nyapari Community Nyapari Nyapari SA