Title
Wipu rockhole
2004
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Wingellina
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Ngaanyatjarraku
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Central and Western Desert
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Northern Territory
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Australia
- Date
- 2004
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- 180.8 x 173.4 x 3.5 cm stretched canvas
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Aboriginal Art Collection Benefactors 2004
- Location
- North Building, ground level, Yiribana Gallery
- Accession number
- 256.2004
- Copyright
- © Tommy Watson. Licensed Yanda Arts
- Artist information
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Tommy Watson
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
'Wipu Rockhole' 2004 is a significant site in the artist's country. According to documentation from Irrunytju Arts Wipu rockhole "is Watson's Grandfather's country. These are all the rockhole around this area".
This painting demonstrates Watson's characteristic fields of dots depicting the sacred landscape, his country, through planes of colour that meld and intersect. Colour is used with great sensitivity and authority in all his work and this painting is no exception.
'Wipu Rockhole' 2004 is a dramatic image that appears to combine visual depictions of the ancestral activity at the site – the snake-like forms and concentric circles depicted on the left hand side of the canvas – with a cartographic representation of the artist's grandfather's country – black shapes of the rockholes – on the right.
Documentation for the Irrunytju Fundraising Art Auction held in August 2003 at Cromwell's Auction House in Sydney states:
"Tommy Watson was born at Anamarapiti, a homeland 44 kms west of the present day community of Irrunytju, sometime around 1935. He travelled in the bush with his parents. He learnt about hunting and respecting country from his father. With these skills he set out on his own, living like his father taught him".In the same document Tommy Watson says: "Our paintings are our memories for the future relatives. If they come into the centre, they can see the canvasses that their parents or grandparents did, so they can think about their history, see what their relatives did, what they painted".
Irrunytju Arts is located in Western Australia 720 kms south-east of Alice Springs, in the Ngaagyatjarra / Pitjantjatjara lands. This new art community exhibited for the first time in 2001. Their vibrant and colourful works have since received much attention from private and public collectors. Tommy Watson has emerged as one of the key artists and this reflects his status in the community as a senior Law man and cultural custodian.
© Australian Art Department, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2004
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Exhibition history
Shown in 6 exhibitions
Irrunytju Wati, Aboriginal and Pacific Art Gallery, Sydney, 19 Aug 2004–11 Sep 2004
One sun, one moon, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 03 Jul 2007–02 Dec 2007
Country Culture Community (2008-09), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 Nov 2008–19 Apr 2009
Our spirits lie in the water, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Nov 2014–01 Nov 2015
Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05 Feb 2016–18 Sep 2016
Yiribana Gallery: opening collection display, Art Gallery of New South Wales, North Building, Sydney, 03 Dec 2022–29 May 2023
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Bibliography
Referenced in 5 publications
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Marie Geissler, Dreaming the Land, 2022, 308. 308 (colour illus.).
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Stephen Gilchrist (Editor), Everywhen: the eternal present in Indigenous art from Australia, Cambridge, 2016, 47 (colour illus.), 110, 111 (colour illus.). fig.no. 4
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Ken McGreggor and Marie Geissler, Yannima Pikarli Tommy Watson, 'Yannima Pikarli Tommy Watson', pg. 7-13, Melbourne, 2010, 32 (colour illus.).
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Steven Miller, One sun one moon: Aboriginal art in Australia, ‘Cultural capital: Key moments in the collecting of Australian Indigenous art’, pg. 29-41, Sydney, 2007, 28 (colour illus.).
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Jill Sykes (Editor), Look, 'Spreading the culture: from desert rockholes tot he bank of the Seine', pg. 29, Sydney, Apr 2005, 29 (colour illus.).
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