Ngayuku Ngura – My Country

‘This is my ngura (land). Lots of Tjukurpa here. Ngayulu Iritjita (yangu palaku) Ngura thuta tjinaku ankupai. Long time ago I was young fella I used to walk all through this land. Ngura wirunja (beautiful country) and up there is Lake Amadeus (kapi piti pulkanja). Big water when it rain. Marlu tjuta wakanu (I speared many kangaroos here) mai pulka kaninji. Lots of tucker here. ‘. Tommy Watson, a senior Pitjantjatjara Elder now in his 70s, began painting on canvas as recently as 2001 and in just four years has taken the Aboriginal Art world by storm. His subject is his homeland, Anamarapiti, in the far reaches of the South Western Desert. His works convey immense visual power through rich but minimal colour elds. According to Judith Ryan, senior curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, ‘Watson produces work that is inward and liturgical which, in common with the early boards of the Pintupi men, exhibits ‘incandescence’. Reference: Colour Power, Aboriginal Art Post 1984, in the collection of the NGV, pp112. ‘This is my country around Anamarapiti: all the rockholes here. This where I grew up in this country. This is really good country. I want to paint these stories so that others can learn and understand about our culture and country’. Tommy Watson, 2002 (as quoted in Colour Power).

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