Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Bears Warlayirti Artists catalogue No. 573/89 on the reverse

Painted at Wirrimanu (Balgo Hills), Western Australia in 1989
Coo-ee Aboriginal Art, Sydney
The Sam Barry Collection, Brisbane
Sotheby's Fine Aboriginal and Contemporary, Melbourne, 17 June 1996, Lot 161
The Thomas Vroom Collection, The Netherlands

Aboriginal Art of the Western Desert, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, October 1990
Kleur Bekennen/Show your Colours, AAMU, Utrecht, 23 April 2009 - 7 September 2009
Aboriginal Art Today!, AAMU, Utrecht, 21 April 2010 - November 2010

Georges Petitjean, Contemporary Aboriginal Art, The AAMU and Dutch Collections, Uitgeverij Snoeck, The Netherlands, 2010, p.52 (illus)

Overall the paint surface is in excellent clean and stable condition. The Arts Centre has repaired a small hole in the reverse of the canvas at the time of production, approximately at the position of the black 'U' shape in the lower left hand register. The work was originally sold with this imperfection.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This work is sold with an accompanying Warlayirti Artists certificate with explanatory notes and an annotated diagram, reading in part,

&ldqu⛄o;This is an aerial view of this man's country showing its main features and identifying many of the main bushfoods... the features were all formed in the Dreamtime by spirit-beings including Wati Kutjarra or Two Travelling Men. A big fire started and b🍎lew these men away to another place. They have left their power here in some stones however.”

Wimmitji Tjapangarti was a renowned maparn, a traditional healer with the powers of sorcery. Here, he paints a tract of his country that is imbued with the f🎃orces of the ancestral beings who created it, the Wati Kutjarra or Two Travelling Men. Two stones in the landscape contain the essence of these powers. The Wati Kutjarra belong to the group of supernatural beings generically known as the Tingari, the apical ancestors of the people of the Western Deserts. The painting features U or C-like shapes that indicate the ancestors in human form, concentric circles that represent waterhole🤡s or camps joined by travelling lines to indicate the journey of the Wati Kutjarra.

In this particular narrative, the Wati Kutjarra were driven off this land by a raging bush fire. The irregular nature of the composition belies an underlying visual logic which expresses both the dynamism of a land vivified by ancestral forces, and the turbulence and chaos encountered in a raging bush fire fanned by strong winds. Kurra lies close by the Canning Stock Route that was established in the first decade of the twentieth century to🌠 take cattle from the Kimberleꦰy to markets in the south. The Stock Route caused a diaspora of traditional peoples living along its path, and it continues to be referred to as a cultural and historical marker by Aboriginal people.

WC