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If the first Papunya boards that emerged in 1971 affronted viewers with what Marcia Langton has termed 'the shock of the ancient'1 - condensed symbols of unknowable secrets unlocked from the ceremonial ground - George Tjungurrayi's linear abstractions are inscrutably modern in their rigorous reduction. But, like the 1971 boards, his more recent canvases conceal far more than they disclose. His pared-down style plays on subtle variations of tone, width and straightness of line, and mirror the extended lines of parallel sand ridges, deeply emblematic of Tjungurrayi's Dreaming country and of his identity.

Tjungurrayi has risen to prominence only in the past decade, forging a bichrome style of scintillating optical stripes articulated with impeccable precision. To understand the evolution of the artist's singular way of conceptualising country in alternating lines and colour, we need to examine his personal history and the canvases that preceded his first solo exhibition at Utopia, Art Sydney, in 1997. This, moreover, needs to be considered against the constantly changing style and potential of fellow Pintupi artists.
 
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Once he found himself as an artist in 1996, Tjungurrayi's work became instantly recognisable for its rigour of conception and execution and its resonant chords of vibrancy. On the surface, his signature style - devoid of dots and restricted to rhythms of straight, wavering or angled lines - accords with that of his peers, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa and Kenny Williams Tjampitjinpa. But his painting method - built up in four considered layers with carefully mixed nuances of colour - is matched by no other contemporary Pintupi artist. Tjungurrayi sees his work as different and is proud of the remarkable achievements that have stamped him with 'Number One' status in his own mind. His master works - monumental vistas of sand-hill country resonant with inside layers of meaning, in light and dark tones of mauve, sandstone, brick, cream or orange - do not come out of a vacuum, but have their place within the trajectory of the Papunya Tula movement and his own quest to make his mark as an artist of consequence. His paintings of parallel linear currents in dual tones of one colour, which may also change direction or fracture into key pattern and maze meanders, are exceptional.
 
George Tjungurrayi's work of the past decade is sustained and serious, and it sits proudly alongside that of the late visionary innovators Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Rover Thomas and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, artists who were intent on paring down their vocabulary of forms, images and glyphs, until the viewer is left with a special form of visual music. Tjungurrayi's conceptual abstractions condense particular places where he and his ancestors lived and walked not as a literal maps, diagrams or notations but as metaphors infused with depth of tonality and rich vibrancy through being inside this country in all its minutiae. His masses of beautifully drawn lines evoke dense rhythms of visual sensations and are the antithesis of western minimalism.
 
 
 
 
This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the article in full in the June 2007 issue of Art & Australia.