COUNTRY NEAR THE OLGAS, 2006
BILL WHISKEY TJAPALTJARRI
synthetic polymer paint on linen
150.0 x 150.0 cm
bears inscription verso: artist’s name, title, size and Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu cat. 77-06194
Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu, Mount Liebig (Yamunturrngu), Northern Territory
Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne
Sotheby's, Melbourne, 5 June 2012, lot 73
Private collection, Melbourne
Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne, 5 – 26 July 2006, cat. 2
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrungu.
‘That cocky and crow and eagle that’s Whiskey, that’s the essence of Whiskey, that’s his spirit, that’s who he is.’1
Country near The Olgas, 2006 is a fine example of Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri’s shimmering aerial paintings of his birth country Pirupa Akla, located west of Uluru. Completed in his second year of practice when the artist was in his late eighties, this work refers to the physical landscape, and to the spirits residing there – specifically, the White Cockatoo story which originated from Pirupa Akla, a creation story of the cockatoo, the eagle and their adversary, the crow. The battle between the birds resulted in the formation of various topographical features such as the rock holes upon which the artist and his family depended, and which therefore served as a constant focus in Tjapaltjarri’s work.
This painting is significant not just for the way it reveals Tjapaltjarri’s skill for handling scale in a spontaneous fashion, but also because it demonstrates how his signature ‘style’ was fully (and uncannily) articulated from the outset. As Nicolas Kachel recalls, ‘…In December 2004, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri walked into the painting room at Mount Leibig, previously the exclusive reserve of women, and requested canvases and paints for himself. And so, at 85 years, he became an artist.’2 Although he had previously painted intricate dot designs on spears and small nulla-nullas, from 2004 to 2008 he produced a body of work that was astounding in its vigour, pulsating colour and often monumental scale.
Exceptional for the unique manner in which the artist has here built up an extremely thick and complex surface, Country near The Olgas is composed of dotting of varied size and density that seems to swarm across the surface. The sheer profusion of dots is not employed as infill, but rather, sets up swirling optical rhythms that release and transmit the key narrative elements concerning the white cockatoo, the eagle and the crow. At the same time, these vibrating swaths of varied dotting invoke the vast expanses of country, linking features such as the dazzling white rock of the cockatoo, the rockpools, the scattered shards of glistening white stone, and other tell-tale signs of the furious battle of ancestral birds that formed his country.
1. Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri cited in Thornton, R. (director), That Old Man, documentary distributed by Thorny Vision, New South Wales, 2009
2. Kachel, N., Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, John Gordon Gallery, Coffs Harbour, 2007, n.p.
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE