Artist

Ray James Tjangala is a highly respected Pintupi elder and an important artist of the Western Desert art movement. A central figure of the second wave of Papunya Tula artists, Ray James is the son of the late Anatjari Tjampitjinpa (c. 1927–1999), one of the founding painters with Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. 

Ray James was born around 1958 at Yunala, a significant rockhole site west of the Kiwirrkurra community in Western Australia. In 1963, he and his family first encountered Jeremy Long, a Government Patrol Officer with the Northern Territory Welfare Branch patrol. His family were one of the last remaining families to be contacted and, ultimately settled at Papunya in 1964. Ray James attended the Papunya School during the early 1970s, at the same time that teacher Geoffrey Bardon AM was encouraging a group of senior men to begin painting using acrylic paint on timber board, marking the birth of the Western Desert painting movement.

Over the following decades, Ray James lived in various remote outstations before settling permanently in Kiwirrkurra in the late 1990s. Although he had painted under his father’s guidance during the late 1980s in Walungurru (Kintore), it was at Kiwirrkurra that he fully developed his artistic practice and was quickly recognised as one of the most important and recognisable artists of the second generation of the Papunya Tula painters.  

Ray James' works are bold and geometric, defined by their minimalist, often monochromatic palette. His interlocking compositions flow in tessellating forms across the canvas, sometimes applied in thick textured paint, and at other times executed with intricate lines and dot work that create optical movement and illusion. The oscillating lines of his practice also conjure the intricate root network of Yunala, a desert flora which shares the name of his birthplace. 

He paints the stories and designs associated with significant sites connected to the Tingari Cycle - an important ancestral story recounting the journey of a group of ancestral beings who travelled over vast stretches of the Country, performing rituals, and creating and shaping the land. Their journeys are enshrined in several song cycles and form part of the teachings for post-initiatory young people today.

Ray James has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally.

In 2000, Ray James exhibited work in the landmark survey exhibition Papunya Tula – Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In 2006 his work was included in Landmarks at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. In 2009 he was invited to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, New York, to complete a ground painting with Bobby West Tjupurrula and Kumanytjayi (Joseph) Jurra Tjapaltjarri (c.1952-2022), coinciding with the travelling exhibition Icons of the Desert: Early Aboriginal Paintings from Papunya.

Ray James Tjangala is a four-time finalist in the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards presented by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, recognised in 1998, 1999, 2016 and 2017. A senior Papunya Tula artist, his works are held in major public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

© The Artist, Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne

For an extended CV, please contact art@alcastongallery.com.au