Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

Ronnie has painted a typical Pintupi tribal painting denoting aspects of Tingari. The most important of the creation stories is the Tingari story, a subject chosen by many artists of the Central western desert. The Tingari were a particular group of ancestral beings, both male and female, who travelled all over Australia at creation time. Their activities encompassed extremes of good and evil, sexual excess, greed, theft of sacred objects and many other human weaknesses. There is great secrecy about some of the rituals and ceremonies connected with the Tingari Cycle, as their adventures are known. Tingari Cycle stories as paintings to the Western eye are enigmatic works and reflect the gulf between the ancestral belief systems of the Pintupi desert people and us Western people. The imagery is considered secret and sacred and hence the full story is only told to male initiates of the tribe. The rest is a euphemism for “It’s not your story so we can’t tell you”. (These notes have been written by Art Mob’s gallery owner, Euan Hills, from various sources and his knowledge of the Pintupi people and their art forms). Feb 2006.