Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri is one of the most significant living exponents of Western Desert Minimalism, and is arguably the most collectable of all living painters from the contemporary movement.
Warlimpirrnga was born in 1958 in the Gibson Desert, east of Kiwirrkura of Western Australia. He was the eldest amongst a small group of nine Pintupi people who have now been coined 'The Last Nomads', which included his brother, now esteemed painter, Walala Tjapaltjarri. In 1984, the tribe left their traditionally nomadic existence, and entered into the newly established community of Kiwirrkura. Tjapaltjarri and his kin had never encountered white people at close proximity before and are documented as the last known group of Australian aboriginal people to have left their traditional ways.
Tjapaltjarri began painting in the early 1990s, and became renowned for his meticulously constructed designs and detailed layering of dots, with the objective of endowing his work with a distinctly rhythmic and dynamic quality.