Clarise Tunkin

Clarise began to learn painting in 2012 with her Grandmothers, Mother and Aunties. Her dreamings or Tjukurrpa, depict the sites associated with an ancestral figure known as Marliu
Many of the caves and sacred rock holes in the region remain as important ceremony sites for the people that still live a semi traditional life in their homelands. Clarises’s ability to produce traditional designs associated with creation stories demonstrates her commitment to learning and preserving these important elements of aboriginal culture.
Clarises’s paintings are confident, spontaneous and instinctual; they show the landscape, flora and fauna.

This painting depicts the ceremony sites associated with Clarise’s country. These locations are an important source of freshwater for the people of the APY Lands. The celebration of these sites is in recognition of ancestral activities referred to as “tjukurrpa”. The series of concentric circles represent significant locations used for ceremony sites. The overlay patterns of the painting represent the physical features of the landscape. This includes the sand-hill country (tali) and the rocky outcrops (puli) creek beds and soaks as well as bush tucker that is hunted and collected whilst moving from one water source to the next.