Sonda was born in the Simpson Desert at Yuendumu in 1956. At 10 years old she moved to Papunya. Her father, Paddy Jangala wanted to go to Papunya as there was going to be a school built. The journey to Papunya took six months. At the Papunya school, the teacher Geoffrey Bardon asked Sonda’s family to paint the mural on the toilet block. Then he asked them to paint on paper.In the early 70’s, Sonda saw her Uncles, Paddy Carroll Tjingurrayi and Two Bob Tjingurrayi starting to paint on canvas and sell to the Papunya Tula Art gallery. Men started first with the painting. Women started in the 1980s.
“I started painting after watching my uncle, and my uncle told me this is how you’ve got to paint it. You’ve got to paint your grandfather’s Dreaming and your grandmother’s Dreaming, and don’t you copy other people’s painting or other people’s Dreaming. You get in big trouble. My sisters and me started painting, and my brother, Norman. Another two brothers didn’t paint. My dreaming “Watyi-Wannu” is two old brothers – one carries the other, they call that place “Watyi-Wannu”.
The story of ‘Watyi – Wannu”, is also told by the use of the colours in the background. Sonda uses each colour to represent each stage of the fire and the day. The colors represent different stages of the fire – white for grass, yellow for ash, pink embers, red flame, black charcoal, green for the first grass after the fire, grey smoke and the dark yellow colour is the dung of the witchetty grub.
Artbank, Sydney.The Holmes a Court Collection, Perth.1990, Art Dock, Contemporary Art from Australia, Noumea, New Caledonia
1991, Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Exhibition, Araluen Centre
1991, Alice to Penzance, The Mall Galleries, The Mall, London
1991, Australian Aboriginal Art from the Collection of Donald Kahn, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, USA.
1992, Tjukurrpa, Museum fur Volkerkunde, Basel.
1993, Tjukurrpa, Desert Dreamings, Aboriginal Art from Central Australia (1971-1993), Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth WA.
1994, Dreamings – Tjukurrpa: Aboriginal Art of the Western Desert; The Donald Kahn collection, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich
Bibliography:
Johmson, V. 2008, Lives of the Papanya Tula Artisits, IAD Press
Australian Aboriginal Art from the Collection of Donald Kahn, 1991, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, USA
Caruana, W., 1993, Aboriginal Art, Thames and Hudson, London
Collections:
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Art Gallery of South Australia. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
Donald Kahn collection, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami.
Malcolm Forbes, USA
The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, U.S.A.
Group Exhibitions:
1986, The Third National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, MAGNT, Darwin
