Artiste : Patju Presley

Titre de l'œuvre : Piltjitjara

Format : 110 x 85 cm

Provenance et certificat : centre d'art aborigène du Spinifex Art Project

Référence de cette peinture : 19-17

Vendue

Explications pour cette œuvre :

Patju has depicted the significant site of Piltjitjara. This site is highly sacred and details the movement of people as they traverse the country on initiation ceremony accompanying the young boys as they transform into men. Patju depicts country he was born into and which formed his religious upbringing. The arid but spiritual environment was the birthplace of the creation beings who shaped the landscape as they moved through it. They left indelible physical reminders of their power in the form of creeks or rocky ridges or a type of tree. But mostly they left their place of abode or the life giving sought after source of precious water, in some form of catchment. This water source is the embodiment of survival within the remote desert extremes with the sites being venerated as such and usually guarded by beings who are able to shift through the realms. They are the characters who dramatise the landscape and give rise to the formations through their movements. They leave behind a mapped moral landscape that holds an elaborate oral religion of song and performance that still permeates Patju's daily life.

Patju Presley (1945) was born in the 1940s at Itaratjara, an important site between to the community settlement of Watarru and Kalayapiti in the Great Victoria Desert. He is a senior Pitjantjatjara Law man with great knowledge of the geography of the Western Desert and the associated Tjukurpa. His intimate knowledge of the country is directly related to survival in this beautiful but sometimes harsh environment learned from the generations of his ancestors.

His artworks are in the following prestigious collections :

Art Gallery Of Western Australia, Perth, Wa
The National Gallery Of Australia, Canberra, Act
National Gallery Of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria.
The Art Gallery Of New South Wales, Sydney, Nsw
The Corrigan Collection, Australia
The Kaplan-Levi Collection, Usa
University Of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld.
Art Gallery Of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia (Mens Collaborative)
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Qld.
Murdoch University Collection, Perth, Wa