Deutscher and Hackett

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

Rockholes and Country Near the Olgas, 2007 is a fine example of Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri's shimmering aerial paintings of his birth country Pirupa Akla, located west of Uluru. Completed in the year before Tjapaltjarri died, 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, eagle and their adversary, the crow. The battle between the birds resulted in the formation of various topographical features, such as the rockholes. The artist and his family depended upon these rockholes, and they were a constant focus in Tjapaltjarri's work.

This painting is significant not just for the way it reveals his innate 'genius' for handling scale in a spontaneous fashion, but also because it demonstrates how his signature 'style' was fully (and uncannily) articulated at 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, over the years 2004 to 2008 he produced a body of work that was astounding in its shimmering vigour, pulsating colour and often monumental scale.

1. The artist quote in documentary Thornton, R. (Producer and Director), That Old Man, 2009, distributed by Thorny Vision, New South Wales
2. Kachel, N., Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, John Gordon Gallery, Coffs Harbour, 2007, n.p.

CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE