Traditions & vernacular · 1971–present · Oceania

Western Desert Iconography

Also known as Western Desert painting, Papunya Tula, Aboriginal dot painting, Western Desert Art Movement, Central Desert dot-style painting, Dot and circle painting

The acrylic painting movement that took form at Papunya in 1971, when men there painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall and then on board, carrying an older practice of sand, body and ceremonial designs into lasting form. 'Western Desert' is an umbrella name: the movement also includes Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters of the Central Desert. Country is seen from above: concentric circles mark sites, U-shapes seated people, lines journeys, tracks ancestral beings, linked into maps of Dreaming stories. Dots fill the field, from about 1973 also veiling restricted designs.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

Western Desert paintings show Tjukurrpa or Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories that belong to particular people through kinship and country: an artist paints only the stories they hold rights to, and some designs are restricted to initiated men or women. Early Papunya boards that showed too much ceremonial detail were criticised in the communities, and painters removed ceremonial objects and veiled designs under dots, so treat early boards with the restrictions their custodians set. Dots, circles and U-shapes are not a free 'Aboriginal pattern': do not imitate them, or any particular Dreaming, for branding, products, souvenirs or generated images, and never set them as type or icons. Imants Tillers' The Nine Shots (1985), which incorporated Kumantje Jagamara's Five Stories (1984), is the cautionary case: it set off a debate over appropriation, and only from 2001 did the two paint together, with permission granted. In the Carpets case (Milpurrurru v Indofurn, Federal Court, 1994), whose applicants included Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, a Pintupi painter among the first at Papunya whose Kangaroo and Shield People Dreaming had been copied onto rugs made in Vietnam, the court awarded damages that took account of the artists' cultural harm. Fake 'Aboriginal-style' souvenirs are a live harm: in 2019 the Federal Court ordered Birubi Art to pay a $2.3 million penalty for selling goods made in Indonesia as authentic Aboriginal art. Commission and license work through community-owned art centres (Papunya Tula Artists, Warlukurlangu Artists and others) and Indigenous Art Code members, pay and credit each artist by name, community and story, reproduce a work whole unless the artist and art centre agree to a crop or overprint, and follow Creative Australia's Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts. Communities may ask that the names and images of people who have died not be used; follow the name the art centre now gives, for example Kumantje Jagamara for Michael Nelson Jagamara.

How it works

Show country from above, as a plan or map, with no horizon, no perspective and no fixed top or bottom.
Build the picture from a small, shared set of signs (concentric circles for sites and waterholes, U-shapes for seated people, straight or meandering lines for journeys, footprints and tracks for ancestral beings and animals) and let context fix what each one means.
Link the signs into a network of sites and paths, so the composition follows the travels of ancestral beings across the land.
Fill the whole field with dots: as infill, as shimmer, and where needed as a veil over designs that must not be shown.
Paint only the stories the artist holds rights to; the meaning of a design belongs to its custodians, not to the viewer.

Papunya, Northern Territory, Australia (Pintupi, Luritja, Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters), spreading across the Western and Central Desert to Yuendumu, Kintore (Walungurru) and Kiwirrkurra. Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara painting on the APY Lands and around Uluṟu developed alongside it, from older roots such as Ernabella (1948).

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition: All-over field defining
Radial & concentric defining
Full bleed characteristic
Organic flow occasional
Space & hierarchy: Horror vacui defining
Repetition & rhythm defining
Flat hierarchy characteristic
Single focal point occasional
Typography: Hand-lettering occasional
Colour: Earth & mineral defining
Dark ground characteristic
Limited spot colours characteristic
Full polychrome occasional
Flat fields occasional
Form & shape: Pictogram defining
Optical pattern characteristic
Geometric primitives characteristic
Non-representational occasional
Biomorphic curves occasional
Stylised figuration occasional
Rectilinear occasional
Surface & texture: Flat characteristic
Painterly brushwork occasional
Ornament: Folk & sacred symbols defining
Abundant decoration occasional
Imagery: Diagram & data defining
Pattern & repeat characteristic
Icons & pictograms occasional
Medium & production: Hand-painted defining
Architecture & signage characteristic
Textile & craft occasional
Tone & intent: Spiritual & sacred defining
Communal & popular defining
Authoritative & institutional characteristic
Calm & contemplative occasional
Avoids: Illusion of depth, Generous white space, Naturalistic depiction, Gradients, Straight photography, Gloss & highlights, Halftone & Ben-Day dots

Palette

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Typefaces

Community spellings of Warlpiri and Pintupi-Luritja names (Jukurrpa, Tjukurrpa, Warlukurlangu, Walungurru) set in a plain Latin face exactly as the art centre gives them, for titles and credits
For APY and Uluṟu work only
Latin faces with the underlined retroflex letters ṉ, ṯ, ḻ and ṟ of Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara spelling, as in Uluṟu and Muṯitjulu (e.g. Noto Sans)
No script or typeface of its own. The signs (concentric circles, U-shapes, lines, tracks) are owned meanings, not a glyph set, so never set them as type or icons

Known for

Honey Ant Dreaming mural, Papunya school
1971; Kaapa Tjampitjinpa with Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri and Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra; painted over in 1974
Papunya Tula Artists (formed 1972), owned and run by Western Desert artists
Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi, Classic Pintupi Water Dreaming
c. 1972, synthetic polymer powder paint on composition board; Wilkerson Collection
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (Anmatyerre), Warlugulong
1977; National Gallery of Australia, acquired 2007
Yuendumu school doors
c. 1983; Warlpiri painters Paddy Jupurrurla Nelson, Roy Jupurrurla Curtis, Paddy Japaljarri Stewart, Paddy Japaljarri Sims, Larry Jungarrayi Spencer; South Australian Museum since 1995
Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu
Warlpiri; founded 1985
Kumantje (Michael Nelson) Jagamara
(Warlpiri), Five Stories (1984) and the Possum and Wallaby Dreaming forecourt mosaic, Parliament House, Canberra (design painting 1985; made in stone 1986–87 by stone consultant William McIntosh and stonemasons Aldo Rossi and Franco Colussi from some 90,000 hand-cut granite setts; on the $5 note from 2016)
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa (Pintupi, Walungurru), Untitled (Tingari motifs) (1997), squared forms in place of roundels; Art Gallery of New South Wales