Artiste : Keith Stevens

Titre de l'œuvre : Piltati - Dreaming Time stories

Format : 100 x 90 cm

Provenance et certificat : centre d'art aborigène de Tjungu Palya

Référence de cette peinture aborigène : 17-255

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Explications pour cette œuvre :

Keith Stevens is a senior Pitjantjatjara man born in the far north of SA at Granite Downs station where his parents were working in the 1940's. Following in his parents footsteps he was mustering at an early age and had no schooling until moving to Ernabella mission. Keith's family would travel for weekends to their traditional homelands of Piltati and Iwarrawarra.

Keith's father eventually sat down with his family close to Piltati creek at what is now Nyapari Community. Keith is a respected senior man in traditional law and a strong community leader. "Today Keith is a man of both worlds. A highly respected traditional law man and a skilled painter of the Tjukurpa in the modern medium of acrylics. His careful application of thick rich colour in intricate patterning creates a three dimensional moulded topography of the Piltati plateau and gully.

This artworks refers to a Tjurkurpa as a love story. This is a story about two brothers and two sisters. The two 'watis' (brothers) - two water snakes, are at the Piltati rockhole waiting for two sisters.

The two sisters who married two brothers and they all lived together.

One day the women went wandering and they went such a long way that they forgot about their husbands. Back at the camp, the two husbands were thinking, 'Where are our wives?' and they decided to go looking for them. One brother said to the other, 'What should we become to go looking for them?' and the other brother said 'Why don't we become Rainbow Serpents?' And they travelled in the sky looking down for their wives. Finally they see them hunting for carpet snakes and they put something in the hole where the women were digging. The women find it and then dig another hole and once again the men have put something in there. And this is how the men lure the women back to Piltati where the men make the sisters transform into Wanampi, swallow them and keep them in their throats. All four of them live together in the waterhole and still live there today.

© Photo : Aboriginal Signature Estrangin gallery with the courtesy of the artists and Tjungu Palya.