Taylor Cooper is a lawyer who is highly respected by his peers. He was born near the sacred place of Malara (a natural water reserve) in the north of South Australia, to which he pays homage through monumental paintings. Born in 1940, he only began painting in 2009, yet one of his first large-format works was acquired by the prestigious National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne). High dignitaries like Taylor Cooper are accustomed to painting on the ground using natural pigments during religious ceremonies. This also explains the large format of his paintings.
Pilta is the well-known tjukurpa story of the two water snakes who live in the Pilta Rockhole with their two wives. This is the land of Witji’s mother, near Kanpi on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in the far north of South Australia.
Witjiti refers to this Tjurkurpa as a love story. ‘It’s the story of two brothers and two sisters. The two ‘was’ (brothers) – two water snakes, are at the Pilta rock hole waiting for two sisters. The two women had gone to look for ‘mai’ (food), they had left a long time ago and the men were hungry. They all live there in that rocky hole’.
