Pegleg Tjampitjinpa

Pegleg Tjampitjinpa was born c. 1920 and lived near Wilkinkarra until 1957 when he and and his family first made contact with Westernization  when a NT welfare patrol happened upon them.  In 1964 he and his family moved to Yuendumu and he has been a trustee of the Wilkinkarra Land Trust since 1984.  He began painting with Pinta Pinta Tjapanangka at Walungurru and depicted the inherited Tingari Dreaming Cycle.

Pegleg feautures in the books ‘Bindibu Country’ by Donald Thompson (1975) and ‘The Lizard Eaters’ by Douglas Lockwood (1964). His work was exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales “Papunya Tula: Genesis & Genius' in 2000 and his paintings are in many major public and private collects in Australia and overseas.

Exhibitions

2000 – ‘Papunya Tula: Genesis & Genius’, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

The Tingari Cycle is a secret song cycle sacred to initiated men. The Tingari are Dreamtime Beings who travelled across the landscape performing ceremonies to create and shape the country associated with Dreaming sites.

The Tingari ancestors gathered at these sites for Maliera (initiation) ceremonies. The sites take the form of, and are located at, significant rockholes, sand hills, sacred mountains and water soakages in the western desert.

Tingari may be poetically interpreted as song-line paintings relating to the songs (of the people) and creation stories (of places) in Pintupi mythology.