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BUDGERIGAR DREAMING 1972

MEASUREMENTS

65 by 92 cm

Synthetic polymer paint, natural earth pigments and PVA on composition board

PROVENANCE
Painted at Papunya in June 1972 W. L. Jackson Collection of Early Western Desert Paintings, Victoria Sotheby's Important Aboriginal Art, Melbourne, 28 June 1999, lot 69 Private collection, Victoria
LITERATURE
Bardon, G. and J. Bardon, Papunya, A Place Made After the Story: The Beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2004, p.280, painting number 216 (a photograph reproduced on p.278 shows the artist painting this work); and in Bardon, G., Papunya Tula: Art of the Western Desert, Mcphee Gribble, Melbourne, 1991, p.111, illus. In 1972 Kaapa painted a series of ten works depicting the Budgerigar Dreaming (see Bardon and Bardon, 2004, pp.278-81). Each painting is composed along symmetrical lines characteristic of Anmatyerre designs. This work is the sixth in the series and features an exuberant, radiating composition while retaining the symmetrical strictures of Anmatyerre painting, in contrast to the more rigid compositions (which Bardon terms 'heraldic') of most of the other paintings in the series. Geoffrey Bardon considered this work to be 'the culmination of a brilliant series of paintings [and] the ultimate achievement of Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, the first Master Artist of the Papunya Tula group of painters' (ibid. 2004, p.280) Ceremonies associated with the Budgerigar Dreaming are conducted for the initiation of young boys. The formal composition reflects the lay-out of the ritual ground. The senior men conducting the ceremony are depicted as the U-shapes adjacent to fireplaces (roundels) at the centre of the upper and lower registers of the painting, and in the very centre of the work. The young initiates are depicted in similar fashion in the four corners of the painting. Note that the U-shapes indicating the men are executed in dotted lines, reflecting the complex body decorations the men wear. By contrast, the initiates are depicted as simple parallel arcs. The body designs are repeated in the larger parallel arcs contained by the triangular shapes to the left and right of centre. The ground of the painting is covered in the tracks of budgerigars In this work the artist has used paint made from red ochre that was mined at Haasts Bluff "THE ULTIMATE ACHIEVEMENT OF KAAPA TJAMPITJINPA" Geoffrey Bardon