Patrick Olodoodi Tjungurrayi

Biography

Patrick was born in Yalangerri near Jupiter Well. He is a Pintupi and Kukatja speaker who has divided his time between Balgo and the Pintupi homeland community of Kiwirrkurra to the south. Patrick is the younger brother of Brandy Tjungurrayi. Patrick walked in from the desert as a fully initiated man, up the Canning Stock route and into Old Balgo Mission. He worked building the stone houses and the church at the new Balgo site. Patrick met and married Mirriam Olodoodi (Lucy Yukenbari’s sister) at the church in Balgo. He first started painting in Balgo in approx 1985. After 2000 he settled permanently in Kintore where he paints for Papuya Tula Artists. He is a senior Law man who looks after ceremony and country between Balgo Kiwirrkurra and Kintore. He is a proficient and well-known painter who executes his works with care and diligence.

Patrick was integral to remote dialysis coming to the communities of Kiwirrkurra and Kintore through the Purple House organisation. His artwork proudly features of the dialysis bus that allows people to return to homelands who are on renal care. Sadly Patrick passed away from kidney failure in 2017, it was his dying wish to have remote dialysis in Balgo so families could return home.