A senior Pintupi man from Patjantja, southwest of Lake Mackay in the Northern Territory, Willy Tjungurrayi was one of the most sought after painters of the Western Desert.
Travelling to Haast's Bluff, and then on to Papunya in his 30s, Willy Tujungurrayi joined the Papunya Tula artists where by the 1980s he was recognised as a senior Pintupi painter. Returning to the Pintupi region later in life, he lived in Walungurru (Kintore) until 2003 and split his time between Alice Springs and Walungurru.
As a senior Pintupi man, Tjungurri paints stories from the Tingari Dreaming song cycle, along with themes from the land around Haasts' Bluff, Wilkinkarra and Kakkuratintja. For some subjects Willy painted dozens of dotted Roundels (concentric circles), linked by parallel lines, the spaces between them filled with bright, flat primary and mixed colours, a depiction of the travels and stopping places of the Tingari Men, an image of the rhythmic repetition of the songs associated with the Tjukurpa (Creation era or Dreaming).
