Love Story at Ngarlu
ASAACPT007
2000
Synthetic polymer paint on linen
121.9x61cm
| Description: | Clifford Possum inherited the Love Story from his father One Pound Jimmy Tjungurrayi who was born at the site. He paints this story with different designs and colours but as he explains it’s always the same story. This painting tells of a young Tjungurrayi man’s love for a Napangati woman, who is the wrong skin (kinship) for marriage to the man. According to Aboriginal Law a Tjungurrayi man should marry a Nangala woman, but after seeing the Napangati woman dance at a corroboree camp at Alyerre, the man’s fate was set. Following his heart the Tjungurrayi man returned to his campsite at Red Hill and proceeded in a ritual of love magic; whereby, he created a certain sand painting, then cut his hair and on a wirrakurra, or spindle, began to spin his hair into an unbroken length of string. The young man sang a potent love song and before the sun went down, the Napangati woman, with love in her heart, was drawn to his campsite where she remained with the approval of tribal elders, who, according to the artist, recognised the Tjungurrayi love-magic as being “too strong; everyone let ‘em go”. |
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