Thomas Tjapaltjarri
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Thomas (or Tamlik) Tjapaltjarri (b c. 1964-2024) was born near Kiwirrkura in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia. As a member of the Pintupi Nine, known as 'the Last Nomads,' Thomas and his family lived a traditional nomadic lifestyle, having no contact with western people or modern civilization until 1984.
It was at Kiwirrkuru that Thomas began to paint on canvas, setting down the stories and images of an unbroken cultural tradition stretching back tens of thousands of years. This style is characterized by its rectangular shapes and lines surrounded by dots.
His style is strongly gestural and boldly graphic, one that is generally highlighted by a series of rectangles set against a monochrome background. The subject of his paintings are the Tingari (Men's Creation Dreaming) cycle, a series of sacred and mythological songs connected to his birth ground. His 'Tingari' paintings are associated with the Artist's Dreaming sites located throughout the vast sandhill country of the West Australian desert.
Tingari are the legendary beings of the Pintupi people that travelled the desert performing rituals, teaching law, creating landforms, and shaping what would become ceremonial sites. As far as we can know, the meanings behind Tingari paintings are multi-layered, however, the meanings are not available to the uninitiated.
Thomas' paintings are exhibited widely in almost all aboriginal galleries in Australia and collected the world over.
