Take a moment and examine the highly refined design by a man who emerged from the Australian bush in 1984 when he first saw non-Aboriginal people. An exquisite optical illusion to our searching eyes, this work is the artist’s topographical view of a living world created by ancestors, including well traveled routes to sacred sites. Once known, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri quickly became one of the Central Desert’s leading painters, a standout with his dotted lines that become rectangles,squares, elevations, and connected diamonds, all at once. The son of Papalya Nangala and Waku Tjungurrayi, an old man who had three wives (Papalya and two of her sisters) the family lived out in the desert, avoiding any contact with Westerners. The isolation was so protracted, he was considered part of the “Pintupi Nine” or “lost tribe” who shocked the outside world when they made contact so long after Australians had already forced assimilation on Aboriginal communities. After many troubled family years, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri went to Papunya Tula Artists, asking to paint. Masters taught him how to use color and canvas. With solo exhibitions in New York galleries, the artist gained international momentum for his work and that of other fine Aboriginal painters. His first eleven paintings were exhibited at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1988 and acquired as a lot by the National Gallery of Victoria.