Artist Profile for Neville McArthur < Back Neville McArthur Neville McArthur ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE NEVILLE MCARTHUR - UNTITLED SOLD AU$1,800.00 NEVILLE MCARTHUR - MARLU DREAMING SOLD AU$1,600.00 NEVILLE MCARTHUR - LAKE BAKER SOLD AU$1,800.00 NEVILLE MCARTHUR - UNTITLED Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Neville McArthur ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

NATIVE | MICHAEL JALARU TORRES | HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL Official Opening | Saturday 4th May, 4-6pm From 04 May to 18 May 2019 Viewing Room NATIVE | MICHAEL JALARU TORRES | HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL From 04 May to 18 May 2019 Official Opening | Saturday 4th May, 4-6pm Cooee Art is excited to announce their participation in 2019 Head On Photo Festival, with Melbourne based artist, Michael Jalaru Torres. A self-taught photographer, Michael explores the recent history of his country. What is being NATIVE and how does a NATIVE person see the world? The landscape talks to us through colours and texture far beyond what the untrained eye can see – through the shift in colours in the sky and water, the contrast from land to sea and the emotional connection to country. Being NATIVE in the past was a negative experience, with a system that was designed to constantly hold down NATIVE people and take away or not recognise our rights and values. Being NATIVE was viewed as being literally part of the landscape, like livestock that was owned and abused. Being NATIVE today reflects on the survival and resistance of not only the first peoples of this land but also the longest living culture on the planet. Culture is in a revival stage and the values of looking after country have become mainstream. NATIVE people are at the forefront of protecting land and sea and the native animals that share this land. The systemic injustice of Australia’s past policies and views of being NATIVE has been hidden for generations, but the use of modern storytelling has started to illuminate this history for a wider audience. Hopefully this series, as an abstract slice of what NATIVE means as a word, connection and view point, can shift the audience from ignorance to empathy to make change for the future.

Artist Profile for Wendy Nungarrayi Brown < Back Wendy Nungarrayi Brown Wendy Nungarrayi Brown ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE WENDY NUNGARRAYI BROWN - YANJIRLPIRRI OR NAPALJARRI-WARNU JUKURRPA (STAR OR ... Sold AU$1,500.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Wendy Nungarrayi Brown ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Artist Profile for Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula < Back Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE TURKEY TOLSON TJUPURRULA - KUNGA KUTJARRA (TWO WOMEN) SOLD AU$2,800.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula Turkey Tolson was born under a tree beside a creek bed about eight kilometres east of Haasts Bluff. After years working in the Haasts Bluff stock camp droving cattle to Mount Leibig, he underwent initiation into manhood and the family moved to the Papunya settlement where Turkey worked as a construction labourer and in the communal kitchen. In 1961 he married and moved with his young family to an outstation west of Papunya. After his first wife’s untimely death, he remarried at Papunya where he lived during the early years of the painting movement. He joined Papunya Tula artists as one of its youngest members, painting his earliest artworks for Geoff Bardon in 1972. Throughout the 1980s Tolson’s unassuming leadership style and commitment to the community led him to remain focused on the more anonymous, collective meaning in his work - to the detriment of any personal ambition. He was, in fact, the artist Chris Anderson of the South Australian Museum had in mind when he stated  ‘Andy Warhol didn’t have a CV either. I mean- they’re not artists on the make. They’re not part of the whole career structure’ (cited in Johnson 1996: 98). Yet Tolson’s individual approach and quiet creative momentum were the hallmarks of what became an enduring career. During his early period, Turkey Tolson was one of the most innovative and figurative artists of the Papunya Tula movement. In the 1980s, he travelled to Paris with Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri to create a sand painting as part of the Peintres Aborigines d’Australie exhibition. He collaborated with renowned artist Tim Johnson, supervising Johnson’s use of sacred designs in Emu, Porcupine and Bandicoot Dreaming 1983. Throughout his distinguished career, Tolson’s experimentality and versatility were abundantly manifest as he embraced new, less traditional mediums including the prints he created for the Utopia Suite and multicolour woodblocks which were, according to Stephen Rainbird, 'a bold expression of his individual sensibility and creativity, his artistic maturity and outstanding carving skill' (1994: 182). His prints were included in the comprehensive survey of Aboriginal printmaking New Tracks, Old Land, which was shown to international acclaim in America, touring 25 venues throughout Australia in the early 1990s. Turkey Tolson was elected Chairman of Papunya Tula in 1985 and held this role until 1995, despite painting for a variety of outside dealers from the early 1990s onward. He became one of the company’s best-known artists, and seemingly had no problem in marrying this status with his desire to act independently when the circumstances seemed propitious. His paintings were invariably included in landmark exhibitions from the early 1980s. These included the exhibition of works from the Richard Kelton collection, Contemporary Australian Art 1981 at the Pacific Asia Museum in Los Angeles, The Face of the Centre at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1985, Aratjara: Art of the First Australians which toured Germany and the UK in 1993-1994 and Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2000. Tolson’s versatility in medium and practice was firmly grounded in his superb command of the more traditional painting techniques.  His most emblematic and famous images are of Straightening of Spears at Ilyingaungau. Mick Namarari, in fact, was at Kirdungurlu for many of Turkey Tolson’s Dreamings and this in part accounts for the striking resonance between their paintings of the period. Turkey’s Spear Straightening images depict spears lying in the desert. The subtle modulations of line and tone evoke the quintessential desert landscape. This, according to Johnson (1994), was one of the most influential artworks of the Papunya Tula movement. Mindful of the profusion of major abstracted canvases produced by artists like Mick Namarari, George Tjungurayai, Willy Tjungurayai, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and a number of other senior Pintupi men, Turkey Tolson becomes the pre-eminent figure in the last decade of the Central Desert art movement and the importance of his work can not be overstated. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Artist Profile for Timmy Payungka Tjapangati Also know as: Tim Payunka, Payungu, Puyungku, Pyungu, Japangardi, Tjapangati < Back Timmy Payungka Tjapangati Also know as: Tim Payunka, Payungu, Puyungku, Pyungu, Japangardi, Tjapangati Timmy Payungka Tjapangati 1935 - 2000 Also know as: Tim Payunka, Payungu, Puyungku, Pyungu, Japangardi, Tjapangati ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Timmy Payungka Tjapangati 1935 - 2000 Timmy Payungka was one of the original group of artists who began painting for Geoff Bardon in 1971. Seeking sustenance during severe drought, he and his family walked a great distance from their homelands in the Gibson Desert, west of Wilkinkarra, Western Australia. After arriving at Haasts Bluff during his childhood he later travelled with family members back to his homelands far to the west of Lake Mackay near his birthplace, the important claypan site of Parayilpil. It was here in this country that his father passed away and Timmy was taken with his adoptive fathers further south to Yarrannga rockhole where the family were contacted by welfare branch patrols and moved to Umari rockhole. In 1957 Timmy accompanied Jerremy Long to Mount Leibig and on to Haasts Bluff making a brief visit to Alice Springs before returning to his wife and child and escorting them in the company of Uta Uta Tjangala into Haasts Bluff the following year. They were amongst the last group of Pintupi to arrive in Haasts Bluff before becoming amongst the first to settle at Papunya. By then, Timmy’s experience travelling with white men and keen sense of responsibility for his people prompted him to become a guardian for the newcomers that followed. Payungka proved to be a highly individual painter from the outset and Geoff Bardon felt a natural affinity with this 'tall boisterous man with an exuberant laugh'. He was by all accounts extremely handsome with a fine physique, and his confidence, and extroverted personality, were reflected in his art. This was typified by vivacious brushstrokes and the resourcefulness in which he transposed Dreaming stories onto the confined painting surface without loosing its vibrant sense of power. Bardon suspected Timmy to be a Kadaitcha Man, a secret enforcer of tribal law, because of his knowledge and apparent ease when broaching upon the most feared stories. In subsequent travels in the company of Dick Kimber he proved to be an exceptional tracker, with an extensive knowledge of his country. During the early days of painting at Papunya, Timmy was inclined to paint unrestrained despite prevailing anxiety about revealing sacred material. Many of his early works include an occasional mix of stylised ceremonial figures, animals and simplified objects such as headpieces and bullroarers, only partly disguised among more abstract designs. In works like his Kadaitcha Dreaming, which he created in 1972, lines radiate out from the central focus, a ceremonial Kadaitcha hat, while on the surrounding prepared earth, Kadaitcha slippers, knee imprints and ritual objects signify a feared punishment being negotiated for an offender. Similarly in Men’s Spirit Ceremony 1972, Timmy painted a bird’s eye view down upon two stylised men who face each other in the middle of a field of dancing tracks and ceremonial objects. His love of ceremonial activity and the sharing of ritual knowledge saw him preoccupied with carving sacred boards when paint and canvas were not available. Payungka’s Tingari works of the period 1975- feature the concentric circles representing sit down places and the linking straight lines for travelling signs in keeping with the Pintupi conventions of the time. These ‘mind maps’ of his immense homeland depicted important places for a long journey, such as food and water sources as well as places of spiritual significance and regeneration. His paintings occasionally included elongated ovals that depict caves, very rare in this area and places of great importance where Dreaming ceremonies took place. However from the early 1980’s onward Timmy increasingly removed representational motifs from his paintings and became more focused on Pintupi male conventions akin to formal abstraction. He used repeated patterning to build a palpable sense of intensity, augmented by contrasting areas of dotted colour and experimentation with tonal arrangements. These late career paintings, characterized by reductive designs in which the repetition of geometric keyed elements concentrates the visual power in referencing the sacred realm, assert Timmy’s ceremonial authority. In 1974 he left Papunya and settled for a time at Balgo Hills. He joined the move to Kintore in 1981 and lived with Uta Uta and John John Bennett 30 km from the community until the establishment of Kiwirrkurra where he settled until the early 1990’s by which time his health had deteriorated to the point that he needed to move to Alice Springs for regular medical treatment. He was amongst a group of Aboriginal artists awarded damages after their sacred designs had been used without permission in a commercial carpet manufacture during the mid 1990’s. The incident served as an indelible reminder to the general public as well as the business world that the Dreaming stories and their ancient symbolic language are not to be taken lightly. Though his legacy is not as potent as a number of his contemporaries, Timmy Payungka played a vital role in the emergence of Western Desert art. He may well have been a Kadaitcha as Bardon surmised. While his paintings may not be as highly recongised as those of several of his contemporaries, they emanate a subtle power and physical presence in keeping with his powerful ritual authority and deep traditional knowledge. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS While undoubtedly a bold and adventurous painter who was happy to experiment stylistically, Timmy Payungka could never be considered amongst the first rank of Papunya male painters. His importance lay in his role as man of great ritual knowledge who embraced the act of painting as a regenerative cultural force making it possible for others to follow his lead. Although a prolific painter and an important member of Papunya Tula Artists during the last decade of his life, seven of his ten best results are for works created during his first three years as an artist. Even at this early stage, between 1971-1973, his works varied greatly in style and content. His most successful work at auction was Cave Story 1971 , a small work on composition board, which sold for $79,500 when estimated at $30,000-50,000, as long ago as 1999. The most interesting thing about it stylistically is its similarity to the linear minimalism adopted by other Pintupi men nearly twenty five years after its creation, and perhaps this was the reason for its success at Sotheby’s at the time. However for a record by such a prominent artist to have stood for more than eight years during what was nothing short of phenomenal growth in the market, is a tell-tale sign that something is amiss. His second highest result for instance was just under half this amount, achieved by Lawson~Menzies in their November 2006 sale. This work’s interest lies more in the fact that it shows elements of the interlocking key design that became his leit-motif late in life; its dotted pattern is contained within the structure of a conventional Tingari painting of the period. The painting failed to sell on the night when offered at $35,000-45,000 but sold the next morning for $38,400. (Lot 58) . One of his highest results was achieved for a work that was attributed to the artist when Sotheby’s sold it in their July 2004 sale (Lot 210 ). The attribution is unlikely to be correct however, as the work shows far closer stylistic resonance to paintings by Yala Yala Gibbs, Shorty Lungkarta, and one or two other artists than to Payungka, other than the way in which the Kangaroo, or possibly bandicoot, is depicted. Sotheby’s relied on the word of the vendor, who had bought it directly from the artist while working as a patrol officer with the Northern Territory Administration in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Still, if it was actually created by Payungka, it is, in my opinion, the best early work by him that has been offered at auction to date. His Water Dreaming 1971-1972 was not a good work, despite achieving $31,200 in July 2006 against a presale estimate of just $12,000-18,000. It did however clearly demonstrate the same elements as many of the perfunctory paintings he created for independent dealers toward the end of his life. None of these have done well at auction and most fail to make the cut. Tingari Painting Associated with the Site of Parayirrpilnya 1986 is one of only two 1980s works which appear in his top ten results and only four in his top 20. As generic Tingari works go, this one is surprisingly good, and better than most. When originally offered in November 1998 Sotheby’s advertised it with an estimate of $7,000-10,000 but failed to find a buyer. The work was later reoffered at Sotheby’s in July 2001 carrying an estimate of $12,000-18,000 and this seems to have done the trick. It found a buyer at $24,000. Despite all of the results above, most collectors identify Timmy Payungka with his late career paintings in which the iconography has been discarded in favour of his immediately recongisable interlocking key design, seemingly derived from the patterning on men’s ceremonial story boards. Although usually in black and white, the artist also created them in a variety of formulaic duo-tonal formats during the mid to late 1990s. The most successful of these has been a work created in 1997 for Papunya Tula. Kangaroo and Fire Dreaming , sold in Sotheby's June 2002 sale (Lot 189) for $31,050. It should be a salutary reminder to collectors that this price is more than four times higher than his next best result for a 1990s painting. In 2004 no less than 24 works were offered of which 15 went unsold. Not surprising then, that in 2007 only two works were offered for sale amongst all of the auction houses taking Aboriginal art in that year. 2008 was not much better. Although the number of works on offer increased to eight, only four sold for a total of just $22,429 despite the fact that one very nice 1973 board work, Big Rain Story , snuck in to the artists top ten results at ninth place when sold for $10,800 at Sotheby’s in October (Lot 84). However, when quality works appear they fetch respectable prices. In 2010 the early 1971 board, Men's Traveling Dreaming, sold for $23,900 at Mossgreen Auctions, making a new sixth place record. The artists best year other than 1999 was 2013 when the only two works offered for sale both entered his top 10 results. Created in 1971 and 1972 respectively they appeared in the Sotheby's sale of works from the collection of Melbourne dealer Beverly Knight. They fetched $67,100 and $36,600 and achieved the artist's 2nd and 4th highest results ever. Since then only underwhelming and generic works from his later years have appeared at auction, with about half of the works on offer selling for an average price $1,164. There is no question that Timmy Payungka was a seminal figure in the Western Desert art movement. He created a large body of work for almost thirty years. While many of these are fine paintings and deserve to be in exalted company, collectors should be extremely careful in selecting works that best represent the various periods of his artistic output. There is a very definite and easily read stylistic progression through the development of his art. While serious collections should definitely include his work in their holdings, only the finest examples are likely to prove a sound investment in the long term. Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

WOMEN IN COLOUR From 28 January to 19 March 2022 Viewing Room WOMEN IN COLOUR From 28 January to 19 March 2022 In Collaboration with Lauraine Diggins Fine Art “This is my country, I paint good colour, little dots. I like my painting.” Angelina Ngal was there from the start, a pillar of the formative years of Utopia women’s painting. Formerly known as Angelina Pwerl, – her husband’s name, Pwerl(e) in Alyawarr language is the equivalent to Ngal in the Anmatyerr language - she is today referred to as as Angelina Ngal. As did her sisters, Kathleen and Poly Ngal, Angelina began producing batiks and wooden sculptures in the mid 1980s. After taking part in the CAAMA ‘summer project’ in 1988-9, Angelina quickly adapted to painting on canvas. She was included in the first exhibition of Utopia women’s paintings, held in Alice Springs in 1990, swiftly gaining international recognition. This appreciation and respect never dipped or wavered in the decades since, though her ascent in the Australian general public’s eye was slow, despite widespread international acclaim among important collectors and museums. Domestically, she may still be less of a household name than some of her contemporaries. Nonetheless, her work was featured at this years Art Basel Miami, as well as being slated to tour internationally as part of the Met’s The Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania. According to Dan F Stapleton in the Financial Times (January 28 2022), Ngal remains ‘something of an insider’s secret whose work is tightly held. ‘If [Emily] Kngwarreye is the A-lister and [Daniel] Walbidi is the rising star, then Angelina Pwerle is the cult favourite – one on whom a growing number of institutions and collectors are quietly placing bets.’* Undoubtedly, Angelina Ngal stands as one of the preeminent artists from Utopia. The long, steady growth of the artist’s acclaim befits her art. Ngal draws from a seemingly infinite well of patience and love of country, gradually layering fields of colour upon each other, considering carefully each swath of delicate marks. She paints her grandfather’s country, Aharlper. Originally, most of her paintings depicted the Bush Plum, which she represents through a focus of red dots into which she merges a variety of minute and painstakingly rendered coloured dots, ensuring that the tiny red dot is always central and clear. Angelina later extended her practice, producing a range of exquisitely coloured compositions that maintain a layer of meaning related to the Bush Plum. In these, points of geography, knowledge of sacred landmarks, and memories of hunting or ceremonial business result in a subtle and textured surface that hints to the viewer of an ethereal numinous landscape. To most of us, much of the sacred and ceremonial business is entirely or partly hidden. Still, the knowledge and reverence of country is palpable; it pulses beneath the surface of each delicate rendering of her country and Dreaming. Abstractly, the works conjure galaxies and molecules at once, the gigantic and the minute. Sometimes, standing before a work is like looking up to the skies as sheets of torrential rain bathe and nourish, drown and revive. Other times, we may be looking down at seeds and desert sand, a world of atomically small elements. This exhibition consists of two parts, running simultaneously at Lauraine Diggins Fine Art in Melbourne, and Cooee Art Redfern in Sydney. With a longstanding relationship, the galleries represent two of the foremost and major Australian Indigenous fine art galleries. The cross-state exhibition surveys the last two decades of Angelina Ngal’s practice, highlighting major works in her distinct styles, with a larger focus on the finely detailed later work the artist is most recognised for. According to the artist herself, “This is a constant engagement. This is a spiritual connection to place […] My Bush Plum paintings represent the whole thing: all of Country.”* * Dan F Stapleton for the Financial Times, January 28 2022

Artist Profile for Debbie Napaljarri Brown < Back Debbie Napaljarri Brown Debbie Napaljarri Brown ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE DEBBIE NAPALJARRI BROWN - WANAKIJI JUKURRPA (BUSH TOMATO DREAMING) SOLD AU$3,300.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Debbie Napaljarri Brown ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

OCEANIC ART FAIR 2021 From 06 November to 06 November 2021 OCEANIC ART FAIR 2021 From 06 November to 06 November 2021 OCEANIC ART FAIR 2021 From 06 November to 06 November 2021 Cooee Art offers a curated collection of Indigenous Art and Artefacts at this year's Sydney Oceanic Art Society Fair. The event will take place at the National Art School in Darlinghurst, where many of the country’s preeminent specialists in Oceanic Art will present a selection of unique and rare items for sale. Cooee Art has proudly been affiliated with the SOAF and their endeavours to further the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art. The focus is on traditional tribal art including contemporary art of the indigenous people of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and Australasia. We look forward to seeing you there. Saturday 6th November, 2021 9am - 5pm Cell Block Theatre National Art School Corner Forbes and Burton St Darlinghurst, NSW www.oceanicartsociety.org.au

Artist Profile for Dhuwarrwarr Marika < Back Dhuwarrwarr Marika Dhuwarrwarr Marika ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE DHUWARRWARR MARIKA - YALAÅ‹BARA - LARRAKITJI (HOLLOW LOG) Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Dhuwarrwarr Marika ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Songs of Country a Survey Exhibition Of Mitjili Napanangka Gibson Cooee Art Redfern - 17 Thurlow St, Redern, NSW 2016 Songs of Country a Survey Exhibition Of Mitjili Napanangka Gibson Songs of Country a Survey Exhibition Of Mitjili Napanangka Gibson Cooee Art Redfern - 17 Thurlow St, Redern, NSW 2016 Songs of Country a Survey Exhibition Of Mitjili Napanangka Gibson Opening | Saturday 7 March | 2pm - 4pm Exhibition | 7 - 28 March 2026 REGISTER YOUR INTEREST EXMitjili26

Artist Profile for Paddy Compass Namatbarra < Back Paddy Compass Namatbarra Paddy Compass Namatbarra ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Paddy Compass Namatbarra ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Artist Profile for Patrick Olodoodi Tjungurrayi < Back Patrick Olodoodi Tjungurrayi Patrick Olodoodi Tjungurrayi 1935 ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE PATRICK OLODOODI TJUNGURRAYI - TINGARI CYCLE Sold AU$0.00 PATRICK OLODOODI TJUNGURRAYI - PURRITJUNU Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Patrick Olodoodi Tjungurrayi 1935 Patrick Tjungurrayi was born in Yalangerri near Jupiter Well c.1935. A Pintupi and Kukatja speaker, he walked in from the desert while on the Canning Stock Route, and moved in to the Old Balgo Mission which had been established in 1943. Here he worked building the stone houses and, after the community moved in 1962, constructing the church at the new Balgo site. He met and married Mirriam Olodoodi, Lucy Yukenbari's sister, at the church in Balgo but returned to Kintore shortly after while she remained in Balgo. Through the early 1980’s Patrick travelled to Christmas Creek, Docker River and a number of other Western Desert and coastal Kimberley communities doing a variety of jobs ranging from construction, labouring and working on boats until he rejoined his wife once more in Balgo Hills. He started to paint when the Palatine brothers first supplied art materials in 1985 and, after the establishment of Warlayirti artists two years later, Patrick became a regular painter along with his older brother Brandy January Tjungurrayi and younger sister Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurayi. During the near decade that he painted for the Balgo Hills art centre, he and Brandy moved between their Pintupi homeland community of Kiwirrkura and Balgo Hills for important gatherings and ceremonies. They eventually resettled closer to their homeland and painted for Papunya Tula artists. Over time, Patrick’s and Brandy’s works of art showed the influence of both of these centres of art making. Due in part to this cultural synthesis, Patrick Tjungurrayi’s work differs from that of other Papunya Tula male artists. His paintings are boldly enlivened by influences from Balgo, exhibiting a strong use of colour and vivid tonal contrasts. They are powerful, intensified by a flickering optical effect, while simultaneously conveying a sense of earthbound, ‘desert warmth’ (Crawford, 2005). At the same time as exhibiting Warlayirti artist’s strong attraction to colour, they maintain the tight formal structure of the Pintupi tradition associated with Papunya Tula art, as well as their preference for combining colours of similar tonal quality. Patrick is a senior ‘Law Man’ who is custodian for ceremonies and country between Balgo, Kiwirrkura and Kintore. His paintings resonate with his deep ceremonial knowledge and authority as a respected leader amongst his people. The subject matter revolves around the mythical Tingari stories that underlie the creation of the sacred sites throughout his country Kallianku, west of Jupiter Well. This is a site that is associated with the Rain Dreaming where in mythological times two Tingari men, Tjapaltjarri and Tjampitjinpa, travelled from the north creating storms and lightning, which brought rain and caused the creeks to flow. The site is also associated with the travels of the Wati Kutjarra, the two initiated brothers who spent time here where water was plentiful during the creation period. In their sleep they would roll around on the ground while dreaming and leave paths marked in earth that became creeks. His paintings of Warriya, a claypan and lake, west of Kiwirrkura, are also associated with the Tingari creators who travelled eastwards through this site at the same time as two snake ancestors. Being a senior Law Man and custodian, he also paints the Rain Dreaming site of Putinjana, another special ‘Law’ ground for men only and well as Wanawarra, the Rainbow Serpent. Patrick Olodoodi was a successful member of Warlayirti artists while he lived and worked in Balgo Hills. However he was not regarded as an artist of major importance while he lived there. His canvases tended to be small, rarely larger than 120 x 80 cm, and these were never put aside for exhibitions in which his work would be distinguishable from that of any of a number of other more prolific artists. He moved back to Kiwirrkurra, closer to his country around 1995 and, after traveling between the two communities for several years, eventually settled at Kiwirrkura toward the end of the 1990’s, painting for Papunya Tula artists since that time. His success as an artist has been consolidated since 2000, with his inclusion in the landmark exhibition Papunya Tula Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and a number of other key exhibitions including his entry in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art Award for the first time in 2004. He has worked on larger canvases since then and his major works have appeared in important Papunya Tula Artist exhibitions at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi and Scott Livesey Gallery in Melbourne, A.P.Bond in Adelaide, Utopia Art in Sydney and John Gordon Gallery in Coffs Harbour. With many of the important Papunya men painting for independent dealers outside of the company in recent years, Patrick Tjunurrayi’s paintings with Papunya Tula provenance have become highly sought after, and will remain so, as long as he continues to paint significant works of quality. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS While Patrick Tjungurrayi began painting in 1985, it is the works he has painted for Papunya Tula since 1997 that have become by far his most collectable. This is a very recent phenomenon, with the majority of his successful works sold between 2005 and 2009 during which 13 of the 26 works offered have sold for an average of $13,208. Yet every single one of the seven paintings on offer between 2001 and 2003 had failed to sell. Fortunately, his reputation, in the secondary market at least, is built on the seven works sold of eight offered between the beginning of 2005 and the end of 2006. With only six of 18 paintings selling during the following two years his importance as a collectable artist is likely to depend very much on whether he is able to create enough high quality major works while he is active as a painter. Certainly, there are some very promising signs that his career in the primary market and his rating at auction should increase sharply over the next decade. In what I consider the most important indicator, his ten highest results have all been achieved since 2005. Prior to 2015 his top five results averaged $21,938 while his next five averaged $10,001, excluding the resale of his top selling work in 2010. However in 2015 the sale of an untitled 2005 work for $45,600 in the Deutscher & Hackett Laverty sale set a new high water mark for this artist, though the catalogue had valued it at just $12,000-18,000. A much larger work of equal quality and provenancne in the Deutscher & Hackett Important Aboriginal Art sale that same year failed to garner interest carrying a far more realistic presale estimate of $40,000-60,000. The following year, another large work with very similar provenance (the work came from the famous Luczo Collection with Papunya Tula provenance) sold for $34,160 against a reasonalbe presale estimate of $35,000 - 55,000, making it his 3rd best result at the time. Prior to 2007 his record price stood at $14,400 for an atypical untitled work created in 2000 for Papunya Tula Artists. The work measuring 122 x 183 cm sold at Lawson~Menzies with a presale estimate of $14,000-18,000 in May 2005 (Lot 133 ). However, when it appeared once more at Lawson~Menzies just over two months later in November 2007, (Lot 176) it carried a hefty $22,000-25,000 and, despite having held his record, failed to find a buyer. By this time Lawson~Menzies had set a new record in their May 2007 sale, which stood at $43,200 until eclipsed in 2015. Warriya 2003 , a Papunya Tula work measuring 183 x 152 cm was estimated at $40,000-50,000 (Lot 15). In June Joel’s Fine Art sold another work, Kaliangu 2002 , for $20,891 against an estimate of $18,000-25,000 (Lot 74) while Sotheby’s achieved $17,400 for Yunula in November (Lot 56) so that by the end of 2007 the record price had been beaten three times despite successful sales for only four of the eight works offered during the year. Interestingly, two of the four failures were paintings sourced from dealers other than Papunya Tula and no Warlayirti Artist’s works appeared. The highest price paid for a Balgo art centre work has been My Lilly 2001 , a work measuring 150 x 100 cm which achieved $11,400 at Lawson~Menzies in November 2006 (Lot 75). While Patrick Tjungurrayi’s records are still fairly scant, it is his major works which have dominated his results, with his lowest sales and unsold works almost universally being smaller canvases. During 2009, only two works were offered and both failed to attract buyers despite being larger works in a style comparative to his premier sales. Perhaps the estimates of $15,000-20,000 were overly ambitious at that time. Auction houses threw caution to the wind during 2010 with three works carrying low estimates as high as $30,000. Of these three, only one work sold. Previously named Warriya 2003 , it had set the artist’s current record price of $43,200 when sold through Lawson~Menzies in May 2007. This time around, Sotheby’s listed it as Untitled 2003 in their November sale (Lot 51) and achieved $27,600; nearly $15,000 less. The four works sold in 2007 averaged $23,822 and lifted his career average from $6,063 to $11,528 in just one year, something to make any investor sit up and take notice. As a result, at the beginning of 2008 Olodoodi was forecast to become one of the most collectable of all Papunya artists over the next decade. This caused vendor’s expectations, and thus estimates, to rise too high too fast. A flurry of failures resulted over the following two years. Patrick Olodoodi's success rate at auction is now just 39% (having dropped from 50% since 2008). It would be reasonable to expect that, until the market improves considerably, his prices for anything other than his finest major works of excellent provenance, will fall in line with the economic outlook. In the meantime collectors should stand ready to acquire anything of size, with good provenance, under $10,000-15,000. Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .