Walala Tjapaltjarri b. c. 1960s

Walala Tjapaltjarri’s exact birth date is unknown, but is estimated to be some time in the early 1960s. In late 1984, Walala and eight other members of his family emerged in Kiwirrkurra from the remote country of Western Australia, after several years of wandering the Gibson Desert. This was Walala’s and his family’s first time learning of European colonization of the continent, and was their first encounter with Western society. They became famous, often known as the “Pintupi Nine” or the “The Lost Tribe”. Walala commenced painting for Papunya Tula Artist Co-op in the late 1980s. Some of his family members also went on to have artistic careers, namely two of his brothers, Wirrlimpirrnga and Thomas Tjapaltjarri. 

Walala paints designs associated with the Tingari Dreaming or the Tingari Song Cycle, which is deeply significant to the Pintupi peoples of the Western Desert. It is usually 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, defined by undulating layers of geometric forms set against a monochrome background.