Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM

Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM is a senior fibre artist, belonging to the Pitjantjatjara language and cultural group and living in the remote community of Pukatja, South Australia.

Born in the desert in the far northwest of South Australia near Attila (Mount Connor), Tjunkaya spent her young life working in the craft room of the Ernabella Mission learning a variety of art and craft skills that laid the groundwork for her significant artistic career.

Tjunkaya is a renowned multidisciplinary artist, practicing in weaving, fibre sculpture, ceramics, painting, wood carving, batik and printmaking. The stitching skills she learnt in her younger years have developed into a fine technical ability to sculpt native and raffia grasses, and her compulsion to create has inspired her to lead large collaborative Tjanpi projects.

Tjunkaya is deeply committed to nourishing her community and handing down her stories and skills. She runs regular workshops at the Ernabella Primary School teaching weaving, woodwork, painting and ceramics, and in 2020 was awarded an Order of Australia for her services to Indigenous visual arts and to the community.

Tjunkaya has exhibited with Tjanpi Desert Weavers widely throughout Australia and overseas. She is also a highly acclaimed ceramicist with Ernabella Arts. Her first solo exhibition, Nintintjaku – teaching, showing, passing on, was held at Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne in 2012. Her most recent exhibits have included Wrapped, Woven and Wound at JamFactory in Adelaide, South Australia, 2020, The Lover Circles His Own Heart: MCA Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney NSW, 2019 and Before Time Began: Contemporary Aboriginal Art at Fondation Opale in Switzerland, 2019. In 2021 she was the lead artist and cultural director of a Tjanpi animation and bilingual picture book titled Tangki (Donkey). Adding to her long list of achievements, Tjunkaya won the Perpetual Gladys Elphick Award in 2018 and The Design Files x Laminex Design Award in the Handcrafted Category in 2020 for her woven teapot sculpture.

Tjunkaya’s work is held in a number of public collections, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, National Museum of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, and the British Museum, London.