• 18. Kungka Kutjara

Raylene Larry

18. Kungka Kutjara

  

'This painting depicts Kungka Kutjara, meaning Two Sisters, and is one of the most significant Tjukurpa stories of the Western Desert region. It tells the story of two sisters travelling through the desert. As they travelled, their actions created landmarks such as rock holes and mountain ranges, forging a record of their travels across the land. Raylene's rhythmic composition is testament to the undulating desert country which the sisters travel through. Her works incorporate the colours of the land - yellows for tjanpi (native grasses), green for punu (trees), browns and reds for puli and tali (rocks, mountains and sandhills').


Raylene Larry is an accomplished artist and 2022 Tjarlirli and Kaltukatjara Art Director. She was grown up and has spent most of her life in Docker River, though she also travels to Areyonga (Utju) and Alice Springs regularly. Raylene is a lively presence wherever she goes, always cracking jokes, chatting to anyone and practicing her dancing skills whenever one of the local bush bands are playing! The story which Raylene depicts is the 'Kungka Kutjara' story,an important dreaming to the women of Kaltukatjara. It follows the journey of two sisters across the desert landscape. Raylene tells this story through a repeating pattern of square motifs which dance across the canvas in varying colour combinations and dizzying linework. The colours she selects are reflected in the country she sees around her - reds and oranges for the dirt, yellows and beiges for the tjanpi (grasses), blue for the water in the rockholes and soakages, and green for the trees and plants. While the desert may seem barren to some,Raylene sees a landscape teeming with life, and tangibly marked by the actions of ancestral creator beings such as the Kungka Kutjara.


Tjarlirli Art and Kaltukatjara Art are two community-owned art centers located on either side of the border between the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The Tjarlirli art centre is located in Tjukurla, a small community of around 50 people in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. Tjukurla was established here in the 1980s due to its proximity to extremely significant cultural sites and the ancestral homelands of community members. Nestled between sand dunes and the vast salt lake (Lake Hopkins). Kaltukatjara art centre is just across the border in the NPY Lands of the Northern Territory. Kaltukatjara (Docker River) community was established as a settlement in the 1960s and is now home to around 300 people. It lies along stunning mountain ranges and river beds.


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