Kuntjil Cooper
Kuntjil Cooper
Born: Irrunytju
Date: 1920 - 2010
Life: semi nomadic around Irrunytju, Ernabella
Language: Pitjantjatjarra
Dreaming Stories:
Minyma Kutjara (Two Sisters Dreaming)
Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sister Dreaming) associated with her mother's country.
Introduction
Kuntjil Cooper was born at Irrunytju rock hole around 1920. A senior Pitjantjatjarra artist and respected Elder, the semi-nomadic life of her early years with her family gave her the intimate knowledge of her environment and tjukurpa that that has sustained her and now contributes to her enormous standing as a senior woman (minyma pampa) in her community.
Kuntjil had extensive knowledge of the epic journeys or incidents of women’s Tjukurpa, especially Minyma Kutjara (Two Sisters) and Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sister Dreaming) which are associated with her mother's country.
Kungkarrakalpa or Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sisters Dreaming)
This is a major Tjukurpa for Irrunytju and other Australian central desert communities. The seven sisters were born at Illuwarratjarra. They travelled from Kaliwarra to Wanarn in Western Australia, stopping at significant sites and rock holes which are associated with Kutjil’s mother country and are sacred places for women. As the sisters walked across the desert, they were followed by a wati kula-kula (lustful man) called Nyiru. He wanted to take one of the sisters as a wife, but he was an old man and they did not want him. The sisters were frightened and ran away, but he tracked them across the desert. Sometimes he tried to trick them, once pretending to be wayanu (quandong fruit). Another time the sisters saw a kuniya (python) which they dug up for meat but when they tasted it they realised it wasn’t good meat and must be Nyiru.
Minyma Kutjara (Two Sisters Dreaming)
This is a very important sacred story that refers to different aspects of ceremonial knowledge associated with Irruntju Women's business. Menstruation, courtship, pregnancy, childbirth, as well as the inma (ceremonial singing and dancing) and rites associated with these things are interwoven into its tjukurpa. So secret are some aspects of the story’s narration that parts are only told in whispers. The major narrative refers to the return journey of a young girl to her family. She originally got lost in a big wind. Her older sister finds her hundreds of kilometers from home, and being raised by another family. The story refers to the young child’s reluctance to leave the family who had raised her and the long trek she took with her sibling to reunite with her family. They journey northwards describes camping at rock holes and sacred places where they gather food, drink water and hunt. At these resting places they also perform ceremony through song and dance and make hair string belts in preparation for women’s business.
Additional aspects of the story include the creation of landmarks such as rock holes and mountains as they traveled through the desert. The Irrunytju rock holes existence is explained as the result of digging sticks being thrown at the ground by the two sisters after being humiliated by being caught unawares by a woman passerby. The intruder found them sitting indiscreetly at the rockhole site with their legs wide open as they were weaving string belts in preparation for women’s business. This story caused all the women to laugh at them. The places where they sat marked the landscape forming creeks and gullies. It also refers to how the mountain near Irrunytju took its form. It is said to represent an incident when the older sister, to comfort the younger one who was crying, told her stories and gave her a piggy back.
Painting Description
Kuntjil's paintings are diagrammatic memory traces or abstract mind maps of her country and the sacred tjukurpa associated with it. They comprise bright organic fields of heavily textured and spontaneous background colour that is masterfully orchestrated and linked by lines that move through many levels of the picture space, sometimes appearing on the surface, and at others, penetrating more deeply into the canvas. These symbolic simulations of the meandering journey over country taken by the sisters as they visit one rock hole and sacred site after another, evoke a framework for the epic Dreamtime journey of these ancestral beings. As she creates these explorations of her ancestral past, Kuntjil sometimes sings inma (traditional ceremonial songs) as she paints.
Artists Statement
"I want to paint the tjukurpa for my country. It is important for Irrunytju. Irrunytju is my country. When I am gone my grandchildren will be able to understand their culture when they see my paintings. I want whitefellas to respect anangu culture. When they see these important paintings they will know that tjukurpa is strong, that anangu are strong."
Collections
• National Gallery of Victoria
• National Gallery of Australia
• Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
• Art Gallery of South Australia
• City of Joondalup Council W.A.
Exhibitions
2009 Agathon Galleries Sydney, Melbourne
2008 Finalist Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Awards
2008 Kuntjil Cooper & Tjayanka Woods, Agathon Galleries, NSW
2006 Raft Artspace, NT
2006 Country in mind: Five contemporary Aboriginal artists, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, VIC
2006 Irrunytju Arts: Senior artists from Irrunytju WA, Raft Artspace, NT
2006 Tjukurpa Mulapa: True Story – Senior Irrunytju Artists, Vivien Anderson Gallery, VIC
2006 Senior Irrunytju Artists, Aboriginal and Pacific Gallery, VIC
2005 New paintings from Irrunytju, Artplace, WA
2003 Nganampa Tjukurpa Kunpu, Nganampa Tjukurpa Mulapa, Vivien Anderson Gallery, VIC
2003 Minyma Pampa Tjutaku Tjukurpa Artplace, WA
2002 Nganampa Tjukurpa Kunpu, Nganampa Tjukurpa Mulapa, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne Desert Mob Araluen Art Centre, NT
2001 Minyma Pampa Tjukurpa (Stories from the old women) Artplace, WA
Bibliography
Andrew Bock, Radical Contemporaries, Australian Art Review, Februry-April, 2009, pp39
Susan McCulloch, McCulloch’s Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The Complete Guide, McCulloch & McCulloch Australian Art Books, Fitzroy, Vic., 3065, 2008
Emily McCulloch, New Beginnings: Classic Paintings from the Corrigan Collection of 21st Century Aboriginal Art, McCulloch & McCulloch Australian Art Books, Fitzroy, Vic., 2008
Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Austria’s remote Aboriginal communities. The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, pp105.
Josephine Tovey, “Two Late Starters Find Themselves in the Pink”, Sydney Morning Herald, March 20, 2008.
“Agathon Galleries Showcases Women’s Painting of Gibson Desert”, Aboriginal Art News, March, 2008.
Robert Nelson, “Bark is better than bite”. The Age, 17/1/2007, pp7.
Megan Backhouse, “Gerard Herbst’, The Age, 15/12/2006. pp67.
Patrick Hutchings, “Mapping an ancient heart”, The Age, 25/11/2006, pp17.
Nicholas Rothwell, Hidden testament”, The Australian, 8/5/2004, pp18.
“Aboriginal art archive”, The Australian, 14/4/2004, pp38.
Nicholas Rothwell , “Remember Wingellina – the life and death of an art phenomenon – Dust to dust”, The Australian, 23/8/2003, pp1
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