Willy Tjungurrayi

DOB: c. 1932

BORN: Patjantja, Northern Territory
LANGUAGE GROUP: Pintupi
COUNTRY: Walungurru (Kintore), Northern Territory

One of the most sought after painters of the Western Desert, Willy Tjungurrayi (c. 1932–2018) was a senior Pintupi man, entitled by his ancestry and communal position to paint the sacred and secret Tingari cycle.

Willy is the middle one of three brothers – Yala Yala Gibbs (founding member of the Papunya art movement and senior custodian of secret/sacred men business) was the eldest and George Ward Tjungurrayi the youngest. They were all sons of Pulpalpulpalnga Tjapaltjarri, but had different mothers.

Willy came into Haast’s Bluff in 1956 with other Pintupi people, and in 1959 he was trucked across to Papunya with most of the other Aboriginal residents due to problems with Haasts Bluff’s water supply. Willy began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1976. By the 1980s, Willy was recognised as a senior Pintupi painter, and he joined the movement of return to the Pintupi homelands.

Stories from the Tingari Dreaming song cycle, and the land around Haast’s Bluff, Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) and Kaakuratintja (Lake MacDonald), are Willy’s two great linked themes. For some subjects, Willy paints dozens of dotted roundels (concentric circles), linked by parallel lines, the spaces between them filled with bright, flat primary and mixed colours, a depiction of the travels and stopping places of the Tingari Men, an image of the rhythmic repetition of the songs associated with the Tjukurpa (Creation era or Dreaming).

Willy Tjungarrayi’s work is highly sought after, and has been acquired for many major private and public collections.

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