Para - Desert Gum Trees
2010
acrylic on Belgian linen
183 x 200 cm
Sims Dickson Collection
© The artist and Kaltjiti Arts
'Para – gum trees, white ones.' Tali Tali describes this expressive painting in a single phrase.
Para reflects both the Ghost Gum and the Desert Gum trees. Their smooth, white to cream bark, is the distinctive feature of this work. The depiction of an element of the landscape is typical of Tali Tali’s style. These medium to large trees shed their bark seasonally in thin scales and have a wide canopy which bear white flowers in Spring and Summer. The Desert Gum can have either crooked or straight trunks. Parts of the Ghost Gum tree were used by Indigenous Australians to treat colds
Desert Gums are native to the Great Victoria Desert of South Australia and Western Australia and can reach 8 - 20 metres in height. The APY Lands was home to the artist for the majority of her life and is the country of her mother and father.
Ghost Gums are found in the south of the Northern Territory where Finke, the artist's birth place, is located.
Kunmanara (Tali Tali) Pompey
Born: 1945 Finke NT - 2011
Language:
Art Centre: Kaltjiti Arts, Kaltjiti (Fregon)
Kunmanara (Tali Tali) Pompey was born on a sand dune near Finke in the Northern Territory about 1947. A fiercely independent and highly traditional woman, she refused the help of the Sisters at Fregon Clinic and birthed eight of her children the bush way. She was a grandmother when she began painting at Kaltjiti Arts centre in 2002.
note: Kunmanara is a term of respect used to replace the first name of Anangu who have died.
