TIKA TIKA, 2007
YURNANGURNU NOLA CAMPBELL
synthetic polymer paint on linen
150.0 x 151.0 cm
bears inscription verso: artist’s name, size and Kayili Artists cat. 07-030
Kayili Artists, Patjarr, Western Australia
AP Bond Gallery, Adelaide
The Luczo Family Collection, USA
This painting is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Kayili Artists that states: ‘Tika Tika rockholes are around 70 kilometres south of the Patjarr Community not far off the main road. It is an important site for Patjarr people as it was where they camped when walking out of Warburton Mission after the rocket testing had finished.
From Tika Tika the people built a cut line road back to Patjarr. As a young girl, Nola Campbell walked around this place with her extended family in the "time before clothes” (in the first contact meetings, white man always handed out clothes), living the way learnt from the Tjukurrpa thousands of generations ago, relying on water sites such as TikaTika for survival. TikaTika was a good source of water; there are eight large holes at this place and people walked from here carrying water in a pingkily-pingkily (wooden dish), to the next camp. Kurpulu, Kunungurra, Kukapitjarra or Yalarra are amongst those places and sites in the Gibson Desert.
This painting's concentric circles represent the rockholes at Tika Tika dug by ngirntaka (perentie) as he was hunting for tingka (sand goanna) and moving through the desert in long ago times.’