Deaf Tommy Mungatopi

(circa 1925-1985)

(Coral Design), 1977

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
A gift from the artist
Private collection, Queensland

RELATED WORK
Untitled, 1977, collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Coral Design , c.1965, collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

In February of 1977 the owner of this painting arrived in the Tiwi Islands located approximately 80 kilometres north of Darwin. After 15 years as a patrol officer in Papua New Guinea, he was sent to Milikapiti on Melville Island by the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs as Community Advisor. He was to remain there a year assisting the community in various matters including setting up a proper building for the local council.

He developed good relationships within the community and regularly took a group of the local men oyster gathering followed by a Sunday barbecue on the beach. The artist, Deaf Tommy Mungatopi, was among the group. Three days before the vendor's departure from Milikapiti on 1 January 1978, Mungatopi presented him with this painting as a sign of gratitude for all he had done for the community and expressed sadness to see him go.

At the time Milikapiti was a troubled community and the vendor observed that the young men had little interest in preserving their culture and its artistic practices. Towards the end of his time there the Aboriginal Arts Board sent a full time arts advisor to re-invigorate the production of traditional art forms. In 1980 an Adult Education Centre was also established, employing Deaf Tommy Mungatopi, a respected artist particularly renowned for the decoration of tutini for Pukumani burial ceremonies, to try and encourage carving and painting practices among the young members of the community. 1

In this work, Mungatopi has overlaid and infilled his striking red and black geometric design with repeating white lines and fine dots to great effect to portray the sun reflecting off coral at a location associated with the Purukapali myth. This technique produces a shimmering effect that also alludes to the painting's ancestral power.

1.Kathy Barnes, Kiripapurajuwi – Skills of our Hands: Good Craftsmen and Tiwi Art, 1999, pp. 48, 53