TJAYANKA WOODS - THE SEVEN SISTERS
TJAYANKA WOODS
THE SEVEN SISTERS, 2010
101 x 61 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Canvas
REGION
Irruntju, SA
PROVENANCE
Papulankutja Artists, NT
Private Collection, NSW
Cooee Art Leven, NSW
STORY
Tjayanka has painted the Tjukurpa (Dreaming Story) of the Seven Sisters, concerning a group of women being pursued by a cunning man called Nyiru who attempts to lure them into marriage with him. He disguises himself in countless ways to trick the sisters, and is sometimes also invisible in paintings. In their escape the sisters travelled through a vast amount of Australia. They stopped to camp, build shelters and hunt for food, thus forming
many features of the landscape and embedding the knowledge of survival in it.
Eventually they fled into the sky where they became the constellation known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. Nyiru still follows them ceaselessly across the night sky as one of the bright stars in the constellation of Orion.
ARTIST PROFILE
