Artiste : Winmati Roberts (1957)

Titre de l'œuvre : Tjara

Format : 137 x 90 cm

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

Référence de cette peinture : 22-296

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Explications pour cette œuvre :

Winmati Roberts has drawn on the millennia of Spinifex cultural knowledge and experience, in his visual portrayal of the symbolism involved in the sacred Tjara (combat shield). Historically, young boys would watch as their fathers cut slabs from certain trees and spent long periods fashioning the tjara with precious stone tools. The men would then sculpt complex incisions and necessary motifs across the face of the shields in  ownership and ritual. Winmati interprets this history with a contemporary creativity and dynamism but also a personal reverence for a fast disappearing practice. Winmati describes these depictions of the tjara markings  belonging to Wati Kutjara Wanampi ( Two Watersnake Men). These men, a father or son from Pukara traverse the Spinifex Lands on ceremonial business. Here he talks of the design representing the significant sites of Pukara and Mituna where the men frequented. But to give even more gravitas to the compositions, Winmati has embraced the use of phosphorescent paint to bring the mapan (magic) to the surface but this can only be witnessed in the cover of darkness. Here he states, is the shield of the father.