Travels of Kutungka, 2006

synthetic polymer paint on linen

205 x 290.5 cm

Est. $20,000 – $30,000

Provenance: Muk Muk Fine Art, Alice Springs, NT Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney, NSW Private Collection, Vic
Artwork story: Writing about Walangkura's work for the National Gallery of Australia, Senior Curator Franchesca Cubillo described her paintings as topographical maps of Country painted according to a spiritual rather than geographic scale, in which significant cultural sites are large and dominate the canvas while discrete locations and tracks disappear into the work. That principle governs every register of this composition. Two vast fields of seeds and gathered foods occupy the centre of the linen, dense oval forms in deep burgundy and pink to the left, tight white roundels on warm gold to the right, each rendered at a scale that declares their ceremonial weight. Around them, concentric arching forms press inward from the upper and lower edges, the sandhills and dune country through which Kutungka moved, while vertical bands of fine parallel lines in olive and gold hold the lateral edges, the country continuing beyond the frame. At 205 x 290.5 cm this 2006 canvas is the most expansive account of the Kutungka journey in this sale, and among the fullest expressions of the freedom, flow and rhythm that Cubillo identified as setting Walangkura's work apart from the senior men who had founded the Western Desert painting movement.

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Sale 3 · Lot 70

synthetic polymer paint on linen

205 x 290.5 cm

Est. $20,000 – $30,000

Provenance: Muk Muk Fine Art, Alice Springs, NT Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney, NSW Private Collection, Vic
Artwork story: Writing about Walangkura's work for the National Gallery of Australia, Senior Curator Franchesca Cubillo described her paintings as topographical maps of Country painted according to a spiritual rather than geographic scale, in which significant cultural sites are large and dominate the canvas while discrete locations and tracks disappear into the work. That principle governs every register of this composition. Two vast fields of seeds and gathered foods occupy the centre of the linen, dense oval forms in deep burgundy and pink to the left, tight white roundels on warm gold to the right, each rendered at a scale that declares their ceremonial weight. Around them, concentric arching forms press inward from the upper and lower edges, the sandhills and dune country through which Kutungka moved, while vertical bands of fine parallel lines in olive and gold hold the lateral edges, the country continuing beyond the frame. At 205 x 290.5 cm this 2006 canvas is the most expansive account of the Kutungka journey in this sale, and among the fullest expressions of the freedom, flow and rhythm that Cubillo identified as setting Walangkura's work apart from the senior men who had founded the Western Desert painting movement.