Seven Sisters

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Seven Sisters

Artist Tjungkara Ken (Australian, born 1969)

Place of OriginAnangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, South Australia

Date2013

Dimensions60 × 78 × 1 1/4 in. (152.4 × 198.1 × 3.2 cm)

MediumAcrylic on linen

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Georgia E. Welles

Object number

2013.182

Not on View

DescriptionHighly detailed dotting laid over a black ground. Colors range between vibrant red, yellow and orange tones which are punctuated by cool green and purple accents.

Label TextIn Seven Sisters, Tjungkara Ken employs a rich palette and meticulous dotting composed into sections of parallel lines to suggest an aerial perspective of the patchwork of landforms that compose the vast and changing topography of her ancestral country, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands in South Australia. The subject of the painting is a Dreaming—a story about the creation of the world by ancestral beings—in which the Seven Sisters (the Pleiades star cluster) are forever chased by Nyiru (a star in the Orion constellation), who wants to marry the eldest sister. The sisters travel to Earth to escape Nyiru’s unwanted attention and assume human form. Tjungkara’s painting depicts their journey across the desert. Circles and ovals represent important sites; traveling lines join them to mark the flight of the Seven Sisters. Like many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, for Tjungkara her artistic practice is an effort to preserve and communicate her religion and culture. By painting traditional stories on non-traditional materials for non-Aboriginal audiences, Tjungkara navigates the complex territory between embracing a cross-cultural world and protecting herself from being compromised by it.Exhibition History

Araluen, NT, Australia, Araluen Arts Centre, Desert Mob 2013, September 6 –October 20, 2013.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Tregenza, Elizabeth and Ananguku Arts (editors), Tjukurpa Pulkatjara: The Power of the Law, Wakefield Press, 2010.