Lot 55: TOMMY SKEEN TJAKAMARRA , YABANU NGULA NGULA NEAR YAKA YAKA IN THE GREAT SANDY DESERT 1994

Bears artist's name, size, and Warlayirti Artists catalogue number 262/94 on the reverse Synthetic polymer paint on canvas

120 by 80 cm

Warlayirti Artists, Wirrimanu (Balgo Hills)
Private collection, Sydney

Cf. For related paintings see Barrakurra near Yagga Yagga, Great Sandy Desert, WA, 1995, in Cowan, J., Balgo: New Directions, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1999, p.37, plate 3, illus.; and Manga Manga in the Great Sandy Desert, 1997, in Morphy, H. and M. Smith Boles (eds.), Art from the Land: Dialogues with the Kluge-Ruhe collection of Australian Aboriginal art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA, 1999, p.175, plate 6.6, illus

This painting is a depiction of a boys? initiation ceremony where an old Tjupurrula named TunguTungu is singing the boys in the ritual. The composition is marked by a series of verticals: the undecorated ones represent sandhills; those decorated on the right of the canvas are singing sticks; and the double bars in the top right symbolise the boys? legs. A group of women appear as U-shapes

This painting is sold with an accompanying Warlayirti Artists certificate