William Sandy
Pitjantjatjara people SA/NT c.1944
Emu Dreaming at Kanpi 1987
Acrylic on linen
213.5 x 262 cm
BCEC Art Collection
William Sandy is a senior Pitjantjatjara artist associated with the Papunya Tula art movement. Born near Ernabella and later living at Papunya, he began painting in the late 1970s. At the beginning of the Western Desert painting movement, many Pitjantjatjara people chose not to ‘give away’ their stories and abstained from the movement. Sandy is a rare example of a Pitjantjatjara artist who chose to paint with their kin from the north-west.
The Emu Dreaming, or Kalaya Tjukurpa, is a creation story associated with Kanpi and its surrounding rockholes and songlines on Pitjantjatjara Country. Here, emu ancestors gathered to lay eggs at key rockholes, indicated here by circular forms, before travelling toward Kintore and Watarru, shaping the land and leaving ancestral traces as they moved.
Emu Dreaming at Kanpi can be viewed on Lower Foyer Level.