A highly talented artist of the Amata community and its arts centre Tjala Arts, Kukika inherited the rights to paint a very important story from her father, the late Kunmanara (Tiger) Palpatja whose birthplace was Piltati rockhole. A famous Pitjantjatjara artist whose work is in numerous leading public and private collections, Tiger Palpatja’s iconography of this sacred waterhole and its creation water serpent, is very distinctive for its strong oval shape outlining the waterhole and its protective water serpent. He was equally renowned for use of lush colour, applied with a confident freedom. Both her late father’s iconography and his use of lush colouration can be seen in work by his eldest daughter. Her paintings often depict a detailed map of the journeys of the two water snake brothers and their wives during the creation of the large, smooth sided sacred rockhole that was her father’s birthplace and hence under her custodianship.
We acknowledge the Traditional Bunurong Owners and Custodians of the lands, waters and seas on which we work and live. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded.