George Tjungurrayi (b. c. 1947) is a highly respected senior Pintupi artist. Born around Walawala near Kiwirrkura in Western Australia, he left the Gibson Desert in his late teens and moved between Mount Doreen, Yuendumu and Papunya, where he settled from the early 1960s. In 1976 Tjungurrayi and his oldest brother Willy Tjungurrayi began painting with Papunya Tula Artists guided by senior Pintupi painters. Over the course of his career he has developed his own style which focuses on abstraction, a minimal colour palette and refined lines that undulate across the surface of his works. Tjungurrayi's paintings are topographical depictions of his Country and areas of cultural significance. From the 1970s Tjungurrayi, his wife Nanupu Nangala and their five children moved throughout the region settling in Kintore in the early 1980s where he continues to live and work. Tjungurrayi's work is held in a number of national and international collections, and was included in the 21st Biennale of Sydney in 2020.
Matthÿs Gerber treated this portrait as a series of coloured planes, contour mapping the artist's face as a cartographer might map a landscape, to evoke Tjungarrayi's shimmery, hovery depictions of Country. It is one of a series of searching portraits in which Gerber attempted to merge portraiture, landscape and colour-field painting.
Gift of Pamela Hansford 2007. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Matthÿs Gerber
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