In late 1984, Walala Tjapaltjarri and his brothers and sisters walked out of the remote country of the Gibson Desert in Western Australia into Kiwirrkurra and made contact for the first time with European society. They became known as the “Pintupi Nine” or the “The Lost Tribe”.  Walala commenced painting for Papunya Tula Artist Co-op in the late 1980s.

It the landscape associated with the sacred Tingari ancestors that Walala so strikingly depicts in his paintings.  Using various iconography, Walala show the travels of the Tingari ancestors as they camped and created all that exists around them.  His style is strongly gestural and boldly graphic, one that is generally highlighted by a series of rectangles set against a monochrome background.