CLIFFORD POSSUM TJAPALTJARRI

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932 - 2002) is considered one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists. He was born on Napperby Station about 200 kilometres north-west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Like many other Anmatyerr people, his family moved to the east region of their country following the Coniston Massacre of the mid-1920s. Tjapaltjarri joined Papunya Tula Artists in February 1972 and was one of their founding directors. He rapidly distinguished himself as one of the company’s most accomplished and inventive artists, an exponent of striking, multi-layered and meticulously rendered visual effects. The art of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri is notable for its brilliant manipulation of three-dimensional space. Many of his canvases have strong figurative elements which stand out from the highly descriptive background
dotting. In the late 1970s, he expanded the scope of Papunya Tula painting by placing the trails of several ancestors on the same canvas in the fashion of a road map. Within this framework, he depicted the land geographically. This laid the foundation for traditional Aboriginal Iconography to be placed on the canvas. When asked why he became an artist, he answered, “That Dreaming been all the time. From our early days, before European people came up. That Dreaming carry on.” His paintings are held in galleries and collections in Australia and elsewhere, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (AU); the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (AU); the Kelton Foundation (AU) and the Royal Collection (AU).