Tjarlirli Art

Tjukurla is a small Indigenous community approximately 800km west-southwest of Alice Springs. During the 1970s, it was an outstation for Docker River across the border in the NT. In the 1980s, one of Papunya Tjula’s important founding artists, senior Law man Anatjari Tjakamarra III, lead his family group back to country not far from where the community is now located. The people of Tjukurla retain strong family ties to Docker River, Kintore and Kiwirrkura and consequently several Western Desert languages are spoken there.

Tjukurla is one of the most sacred places for the Tingarri tjukurpa (Dreaming); it is Tingarri Ngurra, the home of the ancestral Tingarri Men. Here, culture runs deep and true. The Tingarri tjukurpa recounts the activities of the Tingarri Men and the Tingarri Women as they move across vast expanses of Country, performing deeply sacred and secret ceremonies.

Artists include Nyarapayi Giles, Katjarra Butler, Esther Giles, Bob Gibson, Tjawina Porter, Annie Farmer, Lizzie Ellis, Neil Maxwell, Kelly Peterman, Adrian Young, Sally Butler, Adam Butler, Aaron Pei Pei, Denise Brady, Simon Butler and Sheila Giles. Tjarlirli Art is well represented in public collections.