Jan Murphy Gallery is pleased to present Kungkarangkalpa: Seven Sisters by Sylvia Kanytjupai Ken.
The paintings in ‘Kungkarangkalpa: Seven Sisters’ depict the Seven Sister’s creation story, a well-known ancestral narrative of the Pleiades constellations (the sisters) and a sinister man who followed them across the night sky.
The punctuation of dots painted across the vast surfaces, creates a rhythm and an immersive topography that invites you to travel through the remote desert landscape, following the journey of the Seven Sisters as they evade the traps of their menacing pursuer, known here as Wati Nyiru. Ken paints with a punu stick (not a brush) in a signature palette of warm reds, purple, orange, yellow and white, the layering of dots tracing the rock holes, waterholes, and significant places that the story traverses.
Ken explains, “I’m always thinking about colour. Pink, orange, dark red, light red, purple, creams and white. Sometimes I put little colours for wildflowers around the rockholes. I change the colour the same way as Wati Nyiru changes form to trick the sisters; it’s the same way the colours change across the painting.”
Based in the Amata community in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of South Australia, Ken’s evocative paintings are a celebration of Anangu culture and connection to country alongside her individual expression of ‘Tjukurpa’ (ancestral knowledge and law).
Image credit: Sylvia Kanytjupai Ken, Seven Sisters 131 – 22AS, 2022, acrylic on linen, 194.0 x 240.0 cm. Image courtesy of Jan Murphy Gallery and Sylvia Kanytjupai Ken.
