Slava and Leonard spent time looking through the National Museum’s significant collection of First Nations art before choosing Story of the Women’s Camp and the Origin of Damper by Anatjari Tjakamarra.
Grigoryan Brothers – This is Us series 02 Mar 2021
Journey Women
Women on an epic journey
The evocative score tells the story of a group of women on an epic journey. It reflects a sense of awe while also attempting to aurally capture the complex geography and design represented in the work.
Story of the Women’s Camp and the Origin of Damper, painted by Anatjari Tjakamarra in 1973, depicts a journey undertaken by a group of women whose Ancestral forces shaped the desert landscape.
The linear array of squares represents the path they travelled, and the circles are the dampers they made from wild seeds. The circles are joined by a connecting grid that links the exploits of the women to a wider network of Pintupi sites and people.
Anatjari Tjakamarra lived a foraging life remote from Europeans until 1966. Within 5 years of arriving in Papunya he was among the first artists to begin painting with acrylics.
This painting marks a brief transitional phase in the history of the Papunya painting movement between the small, irregular-sized wooden boards of the early years and the large stretched canvases for which Papunya is famous today.
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In our collection