Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri

AUSTRALIAN. PITJANJATJARA, C. 1920 - 2008

Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri was a Pitjantjatjara man who lived in the small community near Mount Liebig in the Northern Territory. Bill Whiskey came to painting late in his life and was renowned as a powerful ngankari or traditional healer and keeper of sacred knowledge. His paintings, the first to depict the powerful Dreaming story and the creation of significant sites throughout his Country, are imbued with authority and steeped in tradition. Bill Whiskey’s spectacular paintings depict his Country around the area of Kata Tjuta (Mount Olga) and Uluru (Ayers Rock) and his subjects also include the mythic battle related in the Cockatoo Dreaming, which occurred at his birthplace, Pirupa Alka.

He began painting at eighty-five and continued until his death four years later. During this short time, Bill Whiskey completed a relatively small number of large canvases where he captured the rockholes, hills, and rocky outcrops across the breadth of his Country, mapping out the places that occupied his memories.