Coolamonby Mick Namararri Tjapaltjarri

This is a highly collectable piece created by the artist in 1983. A coolamon is an Indigenous Australian carrying vessel. It is a multi-purpose shallow vessel, or dish with curved sides. Coolamons are generally made by the men. This particular coolamon is made from Ironwood . In central Australia, the bean tree was often used. A piece of the outer bark of the tree is removed, then moulded over the fire to give it its distinctive curved sides. Deep ridges were made using a quartz stone knife. It needed to stand for a number of days, with a stick of wood holding it open to prevent it losing its shape. Coolamons were traditionally used by Aboriginal women to carry water, fruits, nuts, as well as to cradle babies as depicted in this coolamon. Today when women gather bush tucker, they usually use a billy can, bucket or flour tin. Coolamons were carried on the head when travelling any distance, or under the arm if used as a cradle. If carried on the head, a ring pad was placed on the head, made out of possum and/or human hair string, twisted grass, or feathers. This helped to cushion and support the carriage of the coolamon.

Coolamons were often ornately decorated on their exterior with various etchings - depicting tribal insignia and totemic designs. They were also used in ceremonies, such as for aromatic smoking, which was believed to have purifying effects. They were rubbed regularly with fat, such as emu fat to keep the wood in good condition.

Artist:Mick Namararri Tjapaltjarri
Title:Coolamon
ID:BBAC134
Medium:Coolamons
Size:50 x 35 cm
Region:Walungurru, Western Desert

Artist

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri was born c.1926 at Marnpi south-east of Kintore in the Western Desert, is one of the most important painters to emerge from the Western Desert since 1971.

From the Pintupi language group, Mick lived in the bush with his two sisters, grandmother, and parents. His father went out hunting one day and when he didn’t return, the family found him speared in the back by “a revenge party”. Out of grief, his grandmother built a fire and threw herself on it. Although Mick tried to pull her out, it was too late. It was the 1920s and Mick was 7 or 8 years old but we will never know for sure. He said, “We didn’t know about years then.”

Mick’s mother became the 4th wife of a man named Kamatu, one of the leading Pintupi men in the region, who adopted Mick and his sisters. Mick went through initiation and became an important member of his community. When Haasts Bluff became a cattle station, he went to work in the industry, working for a stockman.

In the early 1960s, he was removed to Papunya and became one of its original painters when Geoff Bardon arrived. He was the subject of Geoff Bardon's documentary film, Mick and the Moon. Family Moon Dreaming, a painting in the Kluge-Ruhe Collection, UVA, was created for Geoff Bardon’s documentary.

Paintings on art board are the artist’s earliest works. Compared to his later works, the early works are brighter colours with a larger variety of details. Orange was used by many of the artists because that is the colour of the countryside. When the sun sets and hits the sand, it is as orange as the paintings depict. More subdued colours began being used when an art marketer suggested the paintings would sell better that way.

From early figurative works, he moved on to creating large geometric designs that typified Papunya Tula art in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1990s he began producing "minimalist" paintings that depicted the imprint of a kangaroo in the sand, the seeds that the marsupial mouse feeds upon, or the aftermath of hailstorms in the desert.

He died in Alice Springs in 1998, survived by his wife Elizabeth Nakamarra Marks and his daughter Angeline Nungurrayi.

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