# Tribute to Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

The background text that follows is in this case not part of the puzzle, nor fictitious. The puzzle, which is self-contained, consists entirely of the image below; I have composed it as a genuine (albeit poor) tribute to the work of a great artist.

Today (21 June) marks the eighteenth anniversary of the death of the great Australian Indigenous artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. He was one of the pioneers in the 1970s of the dot painting technique, now ubiquitous and widely associated with Australian Indigenous art. These works make heavy use of symbolism and other techniques to convey information, often relating to the land. Possessing an extraordinary artistic vision, Clifford Possum produced a great number of remarkable works. One of his masterpieces, Warlugulong, sold for \$2.4 million in 2007, the fifth-highest price ever paid for an Australian art work at that time.

The following simple little puzzle is a tribute to this artist, composed in a style reminiscent of his artform. Can you find the meaning it contains?

Hint:

For any who may still be looking at this puzzle, the best way forward should be to use the numbers @DavidG. has found to guide you in your attempt to read the yellow and red circles.

Hint 2:

For any who may still be interested in this puzzle, note that the red and yellow dots essentially form a set of strings in a two-element alphabet. They may not make sense as written, but @DavidG. has essentially provided a corresponding set of strings that contain (in some order), the numbers from $$1$$ to the string-length... Note that some data may have to be discarded due to the significant constraints of the puzzle's construction forcing the inclusion of non-meaningful data.

For those who may have trouble reading the image, I have provided a pastebin which contains as much as is relevant of the image that I could describe in words. Owing to the inherently visual nature of this type of art, however, you will need to use at least some parts of the image to find the solution.
It is worth pointing out that artistic license has been used in the precise details of the artwork. Generally speaking, counting precise numbers of small dots is not important. Apart from the numbers of outer dots surrounding some of the circles, and the numbers of green dots, you do not need to count e.g. the number of small dots in each circle. If it comes to counting small dots, if I haven't mentioned it in the pastebin, it's not relevant. Precise details of the colours (e.g. hex values) are also not necessary for the solution.

• This is a thing of beauty. Did you place each dot by hand?? – Stiv Jun 21 at 10:49
• @Stiv Not really. I wrote a program to do it, which probably took much much longer... – Anon Jun 21 at 10:58
• Either way - wow! Impressive. And fantastic visuals :) – Stiv Jun 21 at 11:00
• Thank you for the text version! I'm colorblind, and absolutely never would've noticed those green dots. – Deusovi Jun 21 at 18:14
• @Anon I've been turning my attention to this one regularly and have managed to produce various messages as described in your hint (looking most promising with a 're-ordering'), but none of them yet make any meaningful sense! Will look again... – Stiv Jul 10 at 8:44

The dots around the rings are a

Sudoku.

It solves as (assuming my transcriptions are right):

$$\begin{array}{|c c c|c c c|c c c|} \hline 3 & 9 & 5 & 1 & 2 & 6 & 4 & 7 & 8 \\ 6 & 4 & 7 & 8 & 3 & 9 & 1 & 2 & 5 \\ 1 & 2 & 8 & 5 & 4 & 7 & 3 & 6 & 9 \\\hline 2 & 1 & 4 & 6 & 5 & 3 & 8 & 9 & 7 \\ 9 & 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 \\ 8 & 7 & 3 & 2 & 9 & 4 & 5 & 1 & 6 \\\hline 4 & 3 & 1 & 9 & 6 & 5 & 7 & 8 & 2 \\ 5 & 6 & 2 & 3 & 7 & 8 & 9 & 4 & 1 \\ 7 & 8 & 9 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 6 & 5 & 3 \\\hline \end{array}$$

I have no ideas yet on the green dots, yellow and red centers, the bug, or the X.

• This is completely correct so far... – Anon Jun 22 at 3:06
• Is there a chance to get some other Sudoku solution? I'm getting a completely different solution. – Physics Noob Jul 15 at 11:38
• I would expect that would mean that one fo us made a transcription error. – David G. Jul 15 at 14:57