George Ward Tjungurrayi was born near the site of Lararra, South East of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia. Tjungurrayi observed the artwork of his brothers Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi and Willy Tjungurrayi, both leading artists in their community owned Papunya Tula Artists, now a renowned company.
After the death of his brother Yala Yala in 1998, the responsibility to paint fell squarely on Ward’s shoulders. By this stage, he was a senior desert man living deep in the world of cultural law. He began to paint in earnest, developing his own distinctive style. The paintings created were like nothing else that had come before in the desert art movement: sombre, vibrant, ‘musical’, cerebral and shimmering.
The big lake site of Kaakuratintja (Lake Macdonald), where the Tingari (wise, tutoring law men) travel on their way east, is often the subject of his paintings.
A reticent, quiet Western Desert man, he has become one of the nation’s most admired and keenly collected artists. In 2004 Tjungurrayi won the prestigious 2004 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Source: Papunya Tula Artists