Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

Ronnie_Tjampitjinpa

Born:c.1943
Country:Titjurrunya, west of Muyinnga-WA
Skin:Tjampitjinpa
Language group:Pintupi/Luritja

One of the most well known of the contemporary artists of the Papunya School of painters, Tjampitjinpa’s works often feature the geometric deigns of the traditional men’s Tingari Cycle stories in colours ranging from monochromatic blacks and whites to brilliant clear colouration. Other paintings are those based on fire and rain dreamings. He is a prolific painter, the most striking of whose works show great command of line and form and give the sense of optical illusion.
The nephew of one of the founders of the painting movement at Papunya, Uta Uta Tjangala, Tjampitjinpa grew up living a traditional lifestyle in the Winparrku (Lake Mackay) area of the Western Desert. He moved into Haasts Bluff in 1956 and started painting with the senior Papunya painters early in the movement (around 1972). Working as a labourer and fencer he moved throughout the northwestern desert areas between Yuendumu and Papunya and back to settle on his traditional homelands at Kintore (Walungurru) and his outstation of Ininti (Redbank), when the lands were opened to their traditional owners in the early 1980s.
Tjampitjinpa won the Alice Prize in 1988, held his first solo exhibition with Galley Gabriella Pizzi in Melbourne in 1989 and held numerous solo exhibitions between 1989-2006 including Sydney (Utopia Art, 1994, 1996, 1997), Melbourne (Alcaston, 1995; Kimberley Art, 1998; Flinders Lane, 2004) and Brisbane (Fire-Works, 2003). He has been a long-time member of Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd., of which he became chair.

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