Ngarranggarni

NGARRANGGARNI

September 2020

Published on the occasion of the exhibition by JGM Gallery 24 Howie Street London SW11 4AY info@jgmgallery.com ISBN 978-1-9160585-6-9 © 2020 JGM Gallery and the artists All rights reserved

Garnkiny Mr R Peters Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 150cm

A tribute to Mr R Peters b.1924 d.2020 Renowned Aboriginal artist Mr R Peters, who was respected as one of the last great East Kimberley lawmen, died in Kununurra aged 85.

Senior Gija man, Rusty Peters was born under a Warlagarri (or supplejack) tree on Springvale Station south west of Warmun, learning traditional law and working as a stockman. When his father was killed in a riding accident, the family moved to Mabel Downs where he became renowned as a horse breaker.

He began painting in earnest in 1998, and in recent years became one of the most prominent and acclaimed Gija artists, alongside his artist sister Mabel Juli.

Churchill Cann Tommy Carroll Lindsay Malay Patrick Mung Mung Mr R Peters Rammey Ramsey

8. Map of Australia and the East Kimberley 9. Introduction by Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi 15. Essay by Darren Jorgensen 21. The Collection

Introduction The concept of Ngarranggarni is an expansive and complex one that defies simple definition or translation. It is common to many language groups in the Kimberley region and refers to “The time when the landscape took its present form and the rules for living came into being.�

As well, the Ngarranggarni provides a complex framework that continues to encode, nourish and maintain Gija laws and conceptions of social organisation, trade and exchange, kinship relations and family ties, custodianship of country and the practice of song, dance, spirituality, art, language and philosophy.

Our exhibition, titled Ngarranggarni comprises twenty paintings by senior Gija artists from the Warmun community, located in the north-east Kimberley. The paintings document a continuum of integrity evident in the artist’s storytelling of place and rich cultural traditions and evoke the beauty of remote landscape. Maps of country and powerful images relate to harsh realities and the troubled history of the Gija people, post white British settlement.

The Gija artists from the Warmun community paint their country using only natural earth ochres from their land. Each canvas is painted using hand-collected and crushed natural pigments in a luscious array of earth tones. Artworks from the Warmun community draw on

traditional Ngarranggarni stories (Dreaming) as well as contemporary experience, helping maintain cultural connections to country and keeping stories alive in a rapidly changing environment. Gija Country covers a vast area in the spectacular East Kimberley region, an awe-inspiring landscape most familiar to Australian and International travellers for the Bungle Bungle Range (now called Purnululu National Park), Cambridge Gulf and man-made Lake Argyle.

I have visited many parts of the North Kimberley and spent time with Gija artists whose work you can see in this remarkable exhibition. I first met Rammey Ramsey, Mr R Peters, Freddie Timms and Paddy Bedford in 2008 when they lived in an old timber house in Kununnurra, overlooking a scrubby landscape dominated by a massive red rock. The renowned linguist Frances Kofod was living there as well with her son Rohan, who was at the time the chef for the house. We were entertained in style – crisp, white tablecloth and a menu of local fish with excellent wine. After lunch with Freddie Timms, Paddy Bedford and Mr R Peters, Tony Oliver, manager of the former Jirrawun Arts, presented us with some extraordinarily beautiful paintings by these senior artists.

It gives me enormous pleasure to present this body of work at a time when our daily lives have become more complicated and a feeling of uncertainty is prevalent for many of us. Living with Art is uplifting and thought provoking and a blessing in this tumultuous time of Global Pandemic. My husband Filippo and I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by the many beautiful and challenging works in our own collection during the 2020 lockdown and the months working at home. I hope this exhibition brings a sense of positivity and light to those of you who are able to visit, as well as experience online, and that you are able to share in the great sense of optimism I feel at exhibiting these paintings by these exceptional artists who have displayed resilience over millennia. Indigenous Australians have been suffering through the Covid-19 pandemic, and many of their communities are severely affected, even though they are living remotely across a vast continent.

Indigenous Australian people have developed a strength and resilience against adversity through tragic experiences of isolation, marginalisation and suffering. The difficulties faced today are not a new phenomenon for Australia’s indigenous people.

There are a number of vital historic, sacred and ceremonial sites for Gija people in the north Kimberley region, many located on original cattle stations - Texas Downs and Bedford Downs Stations - where the station owners relied on Indigenous workers up to the late1960’s for the tough job of droving large herds of cattle thousands of kilometres to markets as well as breaking wild horses for this work. The introduction of equal pay for Aboriginal workers brought an end to cattle station life and thousands of Aboriginal people were tragically displaced.

Significant aboriginal massacre sites have been identified across the Kimberley region. The traumatic nature of these bloody events is evident in the Gija artists’ work for whom these tragedies bear great personal significance, and continue to feature on their canvases. The paintings enable important cultural stories to live on, reminding and informing Australians of this part of their national history.

It is with deepest sadness that I share a recent chapter in the Gija artist’s history. The diabolical blasting of sacred lands and caves by the mining company Rio Tinto has come as a new tradegy to the Gija people. I have had the privilege of visiting these caves that are a sacred part of the land and peoples history. The destruction of culturally significant sites at Jawaren by Kimberley Granite Holdings (KGH) was a desecration in Gija law and in clear breach of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. This company has broken government law and Gija law and will be held to account. I will share information on ways to support the protection of this sacred land through our gallery website.

Despite shocking events both past and present, the resilient Gija people have sustained practices and beliefs passed down from their ancestors and embedded in their country, for more than 60,000 years in an unbroken society. ‘Country’ is inseparable from identity as people, and their contemporary works are expressions of aboriginal traditions and beliefs, and demonstrate the Gija’s determination for cultural maintenance and a driving passion to pass cultural beliefs to future generations.

Today we are honoured, to exhibit the work of Warmun artists, Rammey Ramsey, Mr R Peters, Churchill Cann, Patrick Mung Mung, Tommy Carroll and Lindsay Malay.

I would like to share my heartfelt thanks to all the artists and to Dominic Kavanagh for his work and dedication towards this important London exhibition.

Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi September 2020

Photo: Georgina Weir, Patrick Mung Mung and Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi

“When we, as Aboriginal people, talk of ‘country’, the term takes on a much broader meaning than the notion of ‘country’ for non- Aboriginal Australians. Country is spoken about in the same way non-Aboriginal people may talk about their living human relatives: Aboriginal people cry about country, they worry about country, they listen to country, they visit country and long for country. Country can feel, think and hear...

Aboriginal people are born with inherent cultural responsibility for their country. We believe that the land owns us, not the other way around...

Our boundaries are drawn by our birthplaces and our relationships to those places, made manifest through the ancient stories connecting people to their country. “

Nici Cumpston

Curator Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Art Gallery of South Australia

‘In the Gija language, Ngarranggarni describes the moment at which the Dreaming ancestors lay down to become the landscape of the East Kimberley, and the way that this laying down recurs eternally in the minds of the living.

It’s about quiet contemplation. Deep,still, listening, awareness. I feel that helps us connect with the Earth in the best way, the fastest way, the strongest way, constantly. All day, all night. At any given moment.’

Jarmbi Githabul

Introductory Essay by Darren Jorgensen’s

NGARRANGGARNI [NAH-run-Gunny]

Warmun Artists – North Kimberley, Western Australia

The story of the contemporary painting movement at Warmun begins a few hundred kilometers away and more than forty years ago. On an island off the northern coast of Australia two artists and sorcerers, Paddy Compass and Yirawala, conducted a secret and dangerous rite in protest against a mine that was being established on their sacred country.

The rite set Cyclone Tracy in motion, creating havoc across the north of the country. It flattened a city, and caused floods and winds far to the south. One of those who died in the aftermath was a woman who was in a car accident on the flooded road to Warmun, and it was her spirit that inspired the beginnings of its ochre painting movement.

In Warmun the Wangkujunga man Rover Thomas received his auntie’s dying dreams as she was being flown south for treatment. From the plane, the woman could see vast amounts of the country as she passed over it, her spirit absorbing its languages, songs and stories.

In a fever of halluciation, Thomas saw her travelling across the north-west, showing him this gift of great insight. When he awoke and could make sense of what he had seen, Thomas persuaded the Warmun community that he had received knowledge from the Ngarranggarni, the Dreaming. This is how the Dreaming sometimes works. While some rituals and songs are passed from generation to generation, others are dreamed, but must be brought into the world through ceremony. Thomas then directed the Kuirr Kuirr, a songcycle that has been danced at Warmun since the 1970s.

A part of the custom of such song-cycles is that the dreamer should not paint the Dreaming, that this representation is left to others, as the Dreaming becomes a part of the community.

The first Kuirr-Kuirr paintings were made to decorate the heads of the dancers for different parts of the story. They were not by Thomas but Paddy Jaminji, who rendered the hills and spirits of the Kuirr-Kuirr for the community to see them.

Made with ochre mined from the local landscape, these paintings represent the beginnings of the contemporary art movement at Warmun. They were seen leaning against a shed by a woman who dealt in boomerangs and other souveniers, running a shop in a city to the south.

She commissioned more paintings, inspiring others to paint.

Thomas was originally from the south of Warmun, and had walked from the deep desert to work on the vast cattle stations that had established themselves on the river country to the north. Jaminji, the first painter in the Warmun style, was a Gija man from this freshwater country around Warmun. Although they were from very different parts of the country, and spoke different languages, they had this concept of the Dreaming in common. The Dreaming is like a vast internet that lies under the Australian continent, in a complex mesh of Dreaming beings and their stories crossing over each other. As people move through their lives, parts of the Dreaming reveals itself, either through visions or dreams, or as elders pass their knowledge to their grandchildren. When Aboriginal people come together for ceremony they hold different parts of the knowledge of the Dreaming, and these pieces come together in dances that can last for days.

Thomas started painting a few years after Jaminji, and their two styles were something of a template for artists to come. Jaminji’s outlines of the steep hills around Warmun, dotted in the desert style, can be seen today in the paintings of Churchill Cann and Patrick Mung Mung.

While Cann paints the energy of the gwarreye hills as they rise from the landscape, Mung Mung, now the elder statesman of the community, captures something of the jagged, overlaid and weaving ridegelines that stretch like spines across the land. While Cann and Mung Mung twist and distort Jiminji’s hills, Thomas instead created vast aerial maps of the country, as if to recall the overview his auntie had while Dreaming, dying and flying. This is the style of Lindsay Malay, whose view of the country feels like it stretches to the edge of the earth, his colourful ochres pressing against the horizon.

Other artists, like Tommy Carroll, shift in their paintings from one style to another, in the process confusing the vertical and horizontal, and turning our sense of looking at space into a sense of being immersed in it.

The choice to use ochre has also long been a strategy by these artists to bring this country closer to us, to make the optics of painting haptic, turning the view upon the land into an experience of the land’s textures and shimmers. This is especially true of the white ochre, that is mined from underneath sandy river beds, and glistens like stars in the night. The decision to only paint in ochre was made in the mid-1990s when the art centre was established at Warmun, as a way of staying true to Gija country and to differentiate their work from other Aboriginal art movements.

This use of ochre on canvas is unique, as is the use of dotting from the desert to outline landscapes. The style reflects where Wamun is located, in the south of the river country, and on the way down to the dry desert country of the south. The iconographic style they use is inspired in part by the experience of working as stockmen, of seeing the land on horseback.

Working on vast cattle stations allowed them to remain close to the country and remain connected to their countrymen. This time working on stations inspired many song-cycles, as different people from different languages gathered by station camps on the rivers, singing and dancing through the nights.

The history of the Warmun art movement shows this overlaid history of Dreaming, pastoralism and the establishment of Aboriginal communities. It is also a cross-cultural history, as people from different parts of the country meet and sing and dance together. In this way the Dreaming becomes modern, revealing itself in new ways. The Krill Krill ceremony is one example of this modernity, and Cann’s paintings of Goodbarriya are another. They are about Cann’s grandmother, who upon the arrival of white men was ashamed to find horns growing on her head, and lived out the rest of her life alone in a cave. Behind each painting is a story in which the ancient and modern come together, in which new histories are forged from the remarkable experience of colonialism and Indigenous culture.

Darren Jorgensen, 2020

Warmun is part of Gija country in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It was settled only 30-40 years ago as a community of peoples displaced from their own specific countries by the pastoral industry after the introduction of equal wages for Aboriginal stock workers in the late 1960s. The distinctive movement of the East Kimberley rose to international prominence through the work of Rover Thomas, who was selected to represent Australia in the Venice Biennale of 1991. Inspired by the vision of Rover Thomas—converging planar and profile views of the Kimberley landscape—the resulting paintings are grounded in social, cultural and political histories while prompting connections outside their own context entirely. This concept of land encompasses multiple perspectives across the space of memory and time, built on the foundations of Ngarranggarni—the Gija word for Dreaming.

Hayley Megan French

Challenging Dialogue; Current relationships between Aboriginal art and artists Presented at Critical Thinking, Research & Art & Culture, 2012 A conference at Sydney College of the Arts

Churchill Cann b.1944 Cann’s compositions are influenced by family, ancestral land and displacement of home.

Red Butte is a hill in Ngarrgooroon Country. Churchill mustered cattle across this country for many years under slave labour conditions. In this painting Cann tells the story of his Grandmother’s relationship to this land.

Goodbarriya, Churchill’s grandmother, took off from Ngarrgooroon Country when it was taken by white pastoralists and turned into Texas Downs Cattle station. Goodbarriya was looking for sweet sugarbag (bush honey) one day when horns started growing from her head. Churchill said: “She felt shame and didn’t want to go back home.” So she stayed in a cave at Red Butte for the rest of her days. Here she became ‘clever’* and the station managers never found her.

Churchill Cann depicts a spring called Moorlji at Mud Springs. Churchill mused here and remembers this place well. The yellow and black sections are different parts of the plains. In the bottom left of the painting, Churchill has painted a spring near the hill where Nambin the snake laid her eggs.

Cann has exhibited widely with significant solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney. His work is in collections at the University of Perth, Artbank Sydney, Kerry Stokes collection and the University of Wollongong. *Clever is a term used by Kriol speakers to indicate that a person has special powers these might be described as ‘healing’ or ‘magic’.

Red Butte Churchill Cann Natural Ochre on Canvas 100 x 140cm

Moorliji Churchill Cann Natural Ochre on Canvas 120 x 90cm

Tommy Carroll b.1955 These paintings tell a story about Nuguwarrding, that rainbow serpent, who travelled and lived around this area now called Doon Doon. Tommy says, “He went up to my grandfather’s country at the back of Speewah where there are gorges and rock holes.” The solid circles represent the water holes in this area and the fluid lines are the hills around Doon Doon.

Tommy continues, “the story of this place was told to me when I was a young fella by my grandfather and his father. This snake was a father for this country, he traveled all over, some times he would stay for a few days then he would leave and pass through the next water place and stayed a bit longer.”

Carroll has exhibted widely throughout his career, and his work is held in the Parliament Collection, Canberra, The National Gallery of Autralia, Artbank and in private collections in Australia and Switzerland.

Nuguwarrding (Snake Dreaming) Tommy Carroll Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 150cm

Nuguwarrding (Snake Dreaming) Tommy Carroll Natural Ochre on Canvas 90 x 120cm

Nuguwarrding (Snake Dreaming) Tommy Carroll Natural Ochre on Canvas 100 x 80cm

Lindsay Malay b.1971 Malay’s paintings depict stories of his ancestry, his families displacement and realtionship to the land. His grandfather Sally Malay was half Afghan and half Aboriginal. Sally’s languages were Gija and English. His mother was a full blood Aboriginal Gija woman, and Sally was born on Weeindoo (Green Vale), 12km from the Nickel Mine. Something happened on Bedford Downs that made my people flee to Violet Valley; because of this, Sally’s mother feared for his safety.

When Sally was five years old, his mother had no choice but to leave him because he was half cast. His mother had put him to sleep one night, and left him on the track that she knew the mailman took. Indeed, he was found on his own by the mailman en route from Warmun to Bedford Downs. The mailman picked Sally up and on horseback, took baby Sally to Bedford Downs.

The Pastoral manager of Bedford Downs at the time, Paddy Quilty, adopted Sally. When Sally became of age he went back to look for his mother and family. After successfully finding them he brought them back to Bedford Downs Station. Malay references this in the painting ‘My Grandfathers Story’.

Bulgundi, Malay’s homeland, is part of Warlawoon. His family members were recognised as Traditional Owners and when the Pastoral Leases came in the postcolonial era. The land was claimed as part of the Tableland Station Pastoral Lease, and Malay’s surviving family were enslaved until they were forced off the land in the 1970s (due to the unfortunate consequences of the equal wages for Aboriginal people that followed from the 1967 referendum).

In about 1995, Malay visited Bulgundi for the first time and felt a strong spiritual connection of belonging and decided to fight to reclaim the land. Over the next 15 years Malay fought to have Bulgundi. Finally, in 2010, along with his brother, and four sisters he achieved freehold ownership rights to their 2000 acres of homeland. This land is at the centre of Gija land, and is the highest point in the Kimberley Ranges. It is a water catchment area where much of the water that flows into the Kimberley begins its journey. It is where the King Leopold Range and the Fitzroy River start.

Malay has enjoyed great career success for a relatively young artist, he has been a finalist in the Hedland Art Awards and Bayside Acquisitive Art Award and his paintings are in the City of Perth Cultural Collection, the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Insititute, Adelaide and the Voituron Collection, Belgium.

Little Fitzroy Rover Catchment Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 150cm

Going Home Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 180cm

My Ganggyi Country Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 150cm

My Grandfather’s Story Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 80 x 100cm

Bulgundi (Homeland) Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 90 x 120cm

My Grandfather’s Story Lindsay Malay Natural Ochre on Canvas 120 x 120cm

Patrick Mung Mung b.1948 Patrick Mung Mung is an important senior Warmun artist. As a young man he used to muster cattle all throughout this country, on the way to Purnululu (the Bungle Bungles massif). Loomoogoo Country lies south-east of Warmun Community, towards Osmond Valley. This is Mung Mung’s uncle’s country, and where his grandparents were born.

In the work opposite, the title Wuniba means ‘hot water flowing from rock’. Loomoogoo is also the name of the large hill above the spring. This was the Blue Tongue Lizard in the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming). The hot water is known as healing water. Mung Mung remembers an old story of a policeman from Turkey Creek whose sickness was cured by the water.

In Droving Through Texas Mung Mung describes his story of hardship in the early days, where he spent his time droving cattle throughout Texas Downs Station as well as working on the station. The main subject of country and landscape depicts his journey travelling from a place called Horse Creek to Maze Spring - both of these places are on Texas Downs Station. In the top section of this work, Patrick paints the hills of Horse Creek. In the centre there is a circular shape brushed in pink - this is described as a nawan (cave).

While travelling through this route Mung Mung and his droving work-mates would often visit this special place to rest and to also acknowledge their ancestors that once walked this country, leaving their etchings on the cave walls, these rock paintings are still there today.

Mung Mung is represented in a large number of collections worldwide including The National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of NSW and the Murdoch University Collection, Perth. With an extensive exhibiting career including numerous solo exhibitions, Mung Mung was also the Headland Art Award Winner in 2018 and Winner of the Bankwest Contemporary Art Prize in 2012.

Wuniba Spring Patrick Mung Mung Natural Ochre on Canvas 90 x 120cm

Droving Through Texas Patrick Mung Mung Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 180cm

Mr R Peters b.1934 d. 2020 Mr R Peters was a senior Gija man of Juwurru skin. His bush name Dirrji refers to dingo pups looking out of a hole at the sunrise. He was born under a Warlagarri tree on Springvale Station south west of Turkey Creek. His spirit came from a crocodile his father had killed when his mother became pregnant. Peters lived for some time at Nine Mile reserve at Wyndham after the introduction of award wages forced people off stations, but then moved to Turkey Creek where, with other senior Gija artists he helped establish the school here.

As part of the Gija cultural program, Peters took groups of boys out to the bush, and showed them how to make spears, hunt and make a camp without matches or blankets in the traditional way. He was a long time friend of Rover Thomas, caring for him on most of the trips he made in the later part of his life. He moved to Crocodile Hole where Freddy Timms based the Jirrawun Aboriginal Arts group in 1997 and began to paint on large canvases. His detailed knowledge of the land and stories from Springvale and neighboring Moolabulla stations is reflected in distinctive paintings in traditional red and yellow ochres and black charcoal.

While recognizably part of the ‘Turkey Creek’ style, the intricate curves mapping the country and the dark caves and rivers in the paintings are particular to Peters’ work. In his works presented for Ngarranggarni, Peters’ depictions of a night sky and his Moon Dreaming story come from his desire to marry a woman who was not a permissible partner by Gija law. The paintings also talk about an important tradition in Gija culture where a mother-in-law relationship with her sonin-law is referred to as Lambarra. These two are not supposed to talk to each other or say each other’s name. The story is important to pass on to younger Gija generations – it is a warning to ensure that one marries the right way – not the wrong way.

In Water Brain - The Last Story, Peters depicts white, black and asian skins in his mark making.

Describing this work Peters says “This is a story about white/black no matter what colour you bin born, we didn’t know anything. But we grow up slowly.”

Mr R Peters eight panel painting Waterbrain was acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW in February 2002 and featured in their True Stories: Art of the East Kimberley in early 2003. His work is in collections across Australia and he was a regular award winner at the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards, receiving the Peoples Choice Award in 2019.

Garnkiny Mr R Peters Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 150cm

Previous Page: Water Brain, The Last Story Mr R Peters Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 220cm Yariny Daam (Moon Dreaming Country) Mr R Peters Natural Ochre on Canvas 100 x 100cm

Big Bullock Yard Mr R Peters Natural Ochre on Canvas 150 x 150cm

Rammey Ramsey b.1935 Rammey Ramsey’s paintings express the landscape of his birth and ancestral lands, whilst teasing out the complexities of Gija world views and the impact of pastoral occupation. He employs striking monochromes and a gestural, rhythmical language of wet-on-wet colour graduations, on which more ornamental dot and jewel shapes are applied, alluding to landmarks, memories, and human presence. This pioneering, atmospheric depiction of his stunning, native Warlawoon gorge country has led to acclaimed recognition in the indigenous art world.

Rammey Ramsey is a senior Gija man of Jungoora skin, whose ancestral Country lies to the west of Bedford Downs near Elgee Cliffs. Ramsey says: “This is my place called Warlawoon. They named me Warlawoon for my Country here. There is a Dreamtime waterhole there, a place where many fish live. This is my mother and father’s Country. I own that Country from my mother and father. Lots of people used to live here with my parents.”

Rammey’s intimate knowledge of waterholes, dreaming, camping and ceremonial sites across his Warlawoon Country inform the composition of his paintings. Although minimalist in appearance his works are laden with narrative. Ramsey now lives in Bow River. His paintings are always infused with the memory of Warlawoon Country and a longing for this place.

Ramsey has exhibited widely in Australia, and in group shows in the US, Paris and London. His work is held in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney and the Ian Potter Gallery, Melbourne.

Warlawoon Country Rammey Ramsey Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 150cm

Warlawoon Country Rammey Ramsey Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 150cm

Warlawoon Country Rammey Ramsey Natural Ochre on Canvas 180 x 150cm

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