About this artwork

Kungkarangkalpa is a major Western Desert Tjukurpa also known as the Seven Sisters). Tjukurpa is the Pitjantjatjara concept for describing the formative creation where ancestral beings create the world. These beings are Anangu ancestors, who can take the form of people, plants or animals. They traverse the country; forming the world we live in, creating the waterholes, the trees, the clay pans, the rocky outcrops, the sand hills and the Spinifex plains. These land formations are the physical manifestation of the creation energy and tangible evidence that this Tjukurpa is true. This Tjukurpa of the Seven Sisters is an epic songline in the Western Desert and tells the story of many women traveling throughout the desert hunting and carrying out ritual obligations all the while being pursued by a cheeky old man in pursuit of a wife. Nyiru the man, is capable of changing form and does this on occasion in order to trick the women. Many parts of the story are secret and involve a sexual element. Only the public details of this story are allowed to be put down in paint.