Timothy Cook

(born 1958)

Untitled (Tutini and Tunga), 2007

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Jilamara Arts and Crafts, Melville Island (cat. no.TC-102-07)
The Harding Family Collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
My Country - Two, The Studio - Cooroy Mountain Park, Noosa, 5 July - 13 July 2008, cat.55 (illus. in exhibition catalogue)

"...the Pukumani ceremony is held on the land of the deceased to ensure the mobadidi (the spirit of the deceased) returns to its country and continues its journey to another life.

A part of the ceremony, huge solid hardwood poles ‐ tutini ‐ are assembled around the ceremonial site as monuments to the deceased....At the end of the ceremony, tunga, stitched bark baskets, are placed over the top of the tutini ‐ an act akin to candle stoppers snuffing the light of life.

The tutini and tunga are left in place at the end of the ceremony ‐ eventually burnt by bushfire, eaten by termites and eroded by water and wind ‐ and these monuments, the last earthly physical reminder of the deceased, are reclaimed by the country, together with their wandering spirit.

No other living artist has Cook's ability to animate these massive ironwood and bloodwood poles and folded stringybark buckets into seemingly spirited forms. The very act of painting his bold, gestural marks on these massive sculpted forms gives Cook's tutini a sense of movement. They are completely transformed as they seemingly come to life, themselves central ceremonial figures, guiding the spirits of the deceased into their spirit world".

Bruce McLean, 'Everything Returns to Place' in Seva Frangos et al., Timothy Cook: Dancing with the Moon, UWA Publishing, Crawley, 2015, p.67