Timothy Cook on the sun, moon and stars

Visitors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ North Building can now experience a new art commission, Kulama – warnarringa, japarra amintiya japalinga (sun, moon and stars) 2023 by Tiwi artist Timothy Cook. A huge vinyl artwork based on one of Cook’s original paintings of the Kulama coming-of-age ceremony, the new commission can be found on the canopy of the harbour terrace, on lower level 1.

Cook is a prolific painter working through Jilamara Arts and Crafts at Milikapiti on Melville Island, who, with his fellow artists, has inherited responsibility to bring Tiwi art to public attention. Since 2003 he has developed an idiosyncratic style of using turtiyanginari (locally sourced natural pigments) to celebrate his familial inheritance, creating images that are acclaimed for their poetic brevity.

Employing parlingarri jilamara (old designs) which he learned from growing up with the wulimawi (Old People), Cook’s work combines detailed circular forms, generally filled with marlipinyini (lines) and pwanga (dots) that make up jilamara – the practice of painting designs on the body in natural pigments and in the complex visual culture of the Tiwi.

Over time and through collaboration, Tiwi artists like Cook, and other collection artists like Kutuwulumi Purawarrumpatu Kitty Kantilla, Freda Warlapinni and Pedro Wonaeamirri, have produced works on an ever-increasing scale, capturing a dynamic new visual perspective of Tiwi culture.

The Art Gallery has an enduring relationship with artists from the Tiwi Islands. In 1958, six senior artists at Milikapiti were commissioned by Dr Stuart Scougall and then Art Gallery deputy director Tony Tuckson to create 17 tutuni or pukumani graveposts, currently on display in the 20th-century galleries.

The Art Gallery has since continued to enrich our holdings of Tiwi art, actively acquiring over the last 30 years a notable collection of works by Kantilla, Wonaeamirri, and Cook, to name just a few. Several of these are currently on display in the Yiribana Gallery.

Based in Milikapiti, Cook specialises in exploring the stories of japarra (the moon), Kulama and japalinga (the stars). Although no longer practised often, Kulama has historically been held late in the wet season, signalled by the appearance of a large lunar halo of refracting and reflecting light that forms around japarra.

In Kulama – warnarringa, japarra amintiya japalinga (sun, moon and stars) 2023 Cook examines how references to the moon, yam and landscape within Tiwi art are intertwined with the Kulama ceremony. His work dwells on the physical coming together of people in a circle over days and nights to engage in an intergenerational exchange of knowledge.

Cook has commented: ‘Kulama painting, that’s our initiation – a song about dancing … potato they cook them up … Keep culture strong and people make it strong … People make culture and they make it strong.’

Visitors can experience Kulama – warnarringa, japarra amintiya japalinga (sun, moon and stars) either while visiting the harbour terrace, or while at MOD Dining.