Note: This story contains the name and image of someone who has died.
The legacy of late Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum Jampijinpa, who was exhibiting in New York by the late 1980s, continues this month as Western Desert painting returns to the city.
The works of Mr Possum Jampijinpa, also known as Tjapaltjarri, map Country through ancestral journeys, using dense dotting and shifting perspectives to hold multiple stories within a canvas.
The Western Desert is a vast cultural region across Central Australia, spanning parts of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia, including communities such as Papunya and Yuendumu.
That idea of continuity underpins Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu — a Pintupi phrase meaning "past and present together", describing a cultural worldview rather than a historical period.
The exhibition, Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu: Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from the Australian Desert, opens on January 22 at New York University's Grey Art Museum, following its presentation at the BYU Museum of Art.
It brings together major works by desert artists across generations, including the Papunya Tula Fiftieth Anniversary Suite, positioning Aboriginal painting as a living, ongoing practice in an American institutional setting.
