Gulgardi
Gulgardi is a 1971 painting by Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, an Indigenous Australian artist from Papunya in Australia's Northern Territory. It is notable for being the first work by an Indigenous Australian artist to win a contemporary art award, and the first public recognition of a Papunya painting.
Background and creation
Kaapa was an Indigenous Australian, born in remote Central Australia around 1920. Kaapa worked on a cattle station at Haasts Bluff before moving to Papunya in the 1960s, having been present during the town's construction in the late 1950s. Once settled at Papunya, according to art historian Vivien Johnson, he was a drinker with a reputation as a troublemaker, cattle thief and grog runner. He was also charismatic and smart.
For many years prior to the 1970s, Kaapa had been using traditional designs to create works of art for sale. These had included wooden carvings and watercolour paintings. In 1971 a local official, Jack Cooke, took six of Kaapa's paintings from Papunya into Alice Springs, entering one of them in a local competition, the Caltex Art Award. On 27 August that picture, Gulgardi, also referred to as Men’s Ceremony for the Kangaroo, Gulgardi, shared the first prize with a work by Jan Wesley Smith. The picture, approximately 140 by 60 centimetres in size, was painted on an old plywood cupboard door that still had rusty nails in it, as well as holes where the handle once had been.
Podcasts:
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by Guy Lockard
Shoulda Coulda Woulda
by: Guy LockardAt night when I close my eyes, I’m dreaming up another way to escape
From the pain that’s killing me, got way too much on my plate
And the worst of it is you’re not here to comfort me
I shoulda known it wouldn’t last too long, we were both in different places
And our friends never got along, so eventually we had to face it
Now you’re gone and I regret we didn’t work it out
All because she found it, the message that I wrote to my ex-girlfriend
And the worst part is I promised her I’d never do it again
But I broke that promise, though I thought it was harmless, I was wrong
Regardless
[Chorus]
I shoulda told her that I still had feelings
I coulda showed her that our love was the real thing
I woulda made it alright, but all I got is shoulda coulda woulda’s in my
Life
I shoulda never let her break
Wish I could take it back but now it’s too late
I woulda changed her mind, now all I got is shoulda coulda woulda’s in my
Life
Shoulda left it in the past, coulda saved a lot of tears and heartbreak
Woulda cleaned up the mess I made, instead I’m living with my greatest
Mistake
I destroyed the only woman that I ever loved
I can’t blame her for the things she said, I shoulda listened to what mama
Told me
With all the shit that my father did, he ended up being sad and lonely
Now I don’t know if I’ll ever find love again
And it’s all because she found it, the message that I wrote to my
Ex-girlfriend
And the worst part is I promised her I’d never do it again
But I broke that promise, though I thought it was harmless, I was wrong
Regardless