Murmur, south of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay)

$8,580.00

This painting depicts designs associated with the large claypan site of Murmur, situated on the southern edge of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). During ancestral times a large group of Tingari Men travelled to Murmur after passing through the sites of Palipalintja and Wala Wala further west. From Wala Wala the men then continued east and visited the rockhole at Tarkul, then they travelled north to Murmur. At Murmur the men lit a huge bushfire as they were hunting and the shapes in the painting imitate the pattern of the spinifex blazing across the country. This story forms part of the Tingari cycle.

Bobby West Tjupurrula is the son of Freddy West Tjakamarra, one of the original shareholders of Papunya Tula Artists. He was born at the rock hole site of Tjamu Tjamu, which is east of Kiwirrkura, around 1958. Bobby’s family was met by Jeremy Long’s welfare patrol in 1963. At the time his family was camping at Willi rock hole, slightly east of Walungurru (Kintore). Bobby appears with his family in the book ‘The Lizard Eaters’ by Douglas Lockwood, which documents the 1963 patrol. He commenced painting for Papunya Tula Artists in the late 1980s. In 1999 Bobby contributed to the Kiwirrkura men’s painting as part of the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal.