Walungurru

Pepai Jangala Carroll works through Ernabella Arts, in Pukatja. Established in 1948, this is the oldest art centre in Australia. The Presbyterian Board of Missions established the first permanent mission in the APY Lands, at Pukatja, in 1937 later opening the art room, with the artists becoming widely known for hand loomed fabrics, hand pulled and knotted rugs and later, batik works. Today Ernabella Arts is home to a number of significant artists who excel in both painting and ceramics.

Carroll is a respected senior practitioner in Pukutja who has developed his own distinct style within painting. Walungurru, 2018 was inspired by a trip Caroll took to the homelands of his father, Paripata Tjampitjinpa who was born at Ininti in the Western Desert. The last time Carroll was there was in the 1950’s when his father took him on a trip to scalp dingos, which would be sold in town as dingos were seen as pests to the livestock farmers and was a form of income for a growing family. A few years after this trip Carroll’s mother passed away and his father soon after her.

Carroll then settled in Ernabella and had not been back to his fathers country since. Carroll, with the support of his friends and family returned and met with the elders from his fathers side in Walungurru (Kintore) visiting sites he remembered from his time with his family as a young boy as well as new ones.

Art centre documentation for this work states;

“Pepai's father comes from sand-dune country near Kintore in the Northern Territory. This place is called Walungurru."The Wanampi is looking for that man. He did the wrong thing and he is running into sand hill country. The Wanampi made that road and he brought the water with him. There was no water here before, but it is still there now."