Mowanjum Wandjina Artists

owanjum andjina Artist

11 March – 30 April 2010

Blackfriars off Broadway

Gordon Barunga Alison Burgu Kirsty Burgu Gabriella Dolby Regina Karadada Raphael Matos Gudu Mungulu Margaret Mungulu Marjorie Mungulu

Viscopy is Australasia’s rights management organisation for the visual arts. Viscopy provides copyright licensing services in Australia and New Zealand for a wide and varied customer base on behalf of our members. We represent over 7,000 Australian and New Zealand artists and their beneficiaries.

Mildred Mungulu

Our membership includes many famous names as well as up and coming artists. Viscopy represents

Sandra Mungulu

approximately 43% of all artists in Australia and New Zealand. Indigenous artists account for almost

Theresa Numendumah Leah Umbagai

half of our membership. We also represent some 40,000 international artists and beneficiaries of artists’ estates in the Australasian territory through reciprocal agreements with 45 visual arts rights management agencies around the world.

Kevin Waina Donny Woolagoodja.

Blackfriars off Broadway is Viscopy’s new exhibition space for artists which is located at our premises in Chippendale, Sydney. Our annual exhibition program aims to showcase the quality, beauty and diversity of the visual art created by our members. We are delighted to have the opportunity to exhibit the work

In association with Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre

of 15 artists from Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre from the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

www.mowanjumarts.com In the culture of the Worora, Ngarinyin, and Wunumbul people, the Wandjina is the supreme creator.

Within Australian Indigenous culture this view is unique to these three groups. Since the 1970s artists We would like to thank

from Mowanjum have been producing significant works of art based around these Wandjina dreaming stories. This is a rare opportunity for the people of Sydney to view the work of these celebrated artists.

Jenny Wright Bronwyn Bancroft

We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Jenny Wright from Mowanjum Art and

Merilyn Fairskye

Culture Centre for the catalogue essay and assistance in making Mowanjum Wandjina Artists possible.

Joyce Parzos For more information about Blackfriars off Broadway, please telephone 02 9310 2018. and the exhibiting artists who have made this exhibition possible

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Mowanjum Wandjina Artists THE SPIRIT OF THE WANDJINA – ART FROM THE WESTERN KIMBERLEY The landscape of the Western Kimberley is one of the most spectacular on earth. Rugged coastlines, gorges, gnarly ancient boab trees, hidden rivers, waterfalls and galleries of astounding rock art make this an extraordinary, if inaccessible, place.

The traditional people of this country are the Worrora, Ngarinyin and Wunumbal, who are united by related languages, kinship and intermarriage. Many of these people are today settled at Mowanjum, a small community near Derby, with others living in small settlements up the Gibb River Road, and through to Kalumbaru. These three tribal groups are the traditional owners of lands lying to the north of Derby and often move between Mowanjum and communities in their homelands where they look after their countries and instruct young people in cultural matters.

Perhaps the greatest connection between these people is their belief in the Wandjina. To the Mowanjum people, the Wandjina is the supreme spirit being, the creator of all living things.

According to Mowanjum artist Mabel King during La Lai (the creation time ) Wallungunder the ‘big boss’ Wandjina came from the Milky Way to create the earth and all the people. These first people were the Gyorn Gyorns. They had no laws or kinship and wandered about lost. Wallungunder saw that he could do good with these people and so he went back to the Milky Way and brought back many other Wandjinas with the power of the Dreamtime snake to help him bring laws and kinship to the Gyorn Gyorn people. The Dreamtime snake represents Mother Earth and is called ungud.

Each artist has his or her own ungud birthplace or dreaming place. The Wandjina created the animals and the baby spirits that reside in the rock pools or sacred ungud places throughout the Kimberley and continue to control everything that happens in the sea, on the land and in the sky.

Sam Woolagoodja (dec), an eminent Worrorra leader and law man, described the Wandjina image by saying ‘their power is so great that they don’t need to speak, so they have no mouth. Their eyes are powerful and black, like the eye of a cyclone. The lines around a Wandjina’s head can mean lots of things – clouds, rain lightning. The Wandjinas,’ he said, ‘painted their own images on the cave walls before they returned to the spirit world.’ So the Wandjina creation spirits were the first painters.

Mowanjum people have painted the Wandjina image in sacred rock art sites scattered throughout the Kimberley, for at least the past 10,000 years. One of Sam Woolagoodja’s important cultural responsibilities, now carried out by his son Donny, was to maintain hundreds of Wandjina rock paintings along the Kimberley coast. ‘It’s our job to keep these Wandjinas bright and happy.

That’s why we have to keep painting them. This ensures that the Wandjinas’ power remains strong.’

Artists from Mowanjum began producing artwork for sale soon after their movement to the new mission site near Derby in 1956. Images of the enigmatic Wandjina appeared first on paper, cardboard packaging, bark and boab nuts. Early artists included Wattie Karrawarra, Charlie Numbelmore, Alec Mingelamanganu, Jack Wherra, Sam Woolagoodja, Manila Kutwit, David Mowaljarlie, Albert Barunga, Alan Mungulu, Wattie Ngerdu, Paddy Morlumbun, Collier Bangmorra and Spider Burgu. Wandjina painting from Mowanjum and Kalumbaru was among the first 4

contemporary art forms established in the Kimberley. Ngarinyin elder David Mowaljarlie encouraged people to paint, selling works through the Mowanjum Community Store in the 1970s. At the same time, Lily and Jack Karadada also started to make Wandjina paintings for sale further north in Kalumbaru. At Mowanjum, art teachers Mark Norval and Peter Croll, encouraged the painters over a long period. Many of the artists featured in this exhibition have been taught art making techniques by these committed teachers.

Artists painting today include Worrorra cultural leader and author Donny Woolagoodja, Gordon Barunga, Alison Burgu, Kirsty Burgu, Gabriella Dolby, Warren Barunga, Regina Karadada, Theresa Numendumah, Leah Umbagai, and the Mungulu clan; mother Gudu and her daughters, Marjorie Mungulu, Margaret Mungulu, Mildred Mungulu, Robyn Mungulu, and Sandra Mungulu, whose works have been acquired by major collections. Some 73 painters sell work through their centre, ranging in age from 14 to 84.

The painters of Mowanjum now use contemporary media, reserving traditional ochres for ceremony, however the palette has changed little, and painters still embrace the warm ochres, creamy white and charcoal black in painting today. Traditional techniques of splattering finished images with white ochre to “finish” the painting, are replicated too, especially by Gordon Barunga. The typical brush stroke of Mowanjum artists is an elongated dash, often repeated as in fill on Wandjina and other figures. This represents rain falling. The Wandjina, as the life giver, also brings the rain.

Thanks to the generosity of the Mowanjum people, the world has the opportunity to learn about one of the oldest and most powerful images in Aboriginal art and the stories that sustain and energise this timeless tradition. In talking about this Donny Woolagoodja has said: ‘The Wandjinas belonged to people long before our time. They created our laws. We still have to obey these laws. The young people at Mowanjum know their culture. My advice to them is to keep it going. If they don’t, the Wandjinas will die away- just like people die away. That’s why we are painting Wandjinas now. If white people have a Wandjina, that Wandjina can bring them a good life if they treat it with respect. They should look at it a lot. The spirit is in there. In the old days only very special men could paint the Wandjina but now we are the only ones left to paint him to keep his spirit alive. It’s his last and only chance ….without your culture you are lost, floating’.

Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre, an Indigenous owned and run business, plays a pivotal role in sustaining and transmitting culture. The centre supports the artistic and cultural expression of the Ngarinyin, Wanumbul and Worrorra artists, sharing this knowledge with the wider world through paintings , a collection of artefacts, books, music and film material about the people, their traditions, beliefs, and stories. Every July this culture is celebrated through the Mowanjum Festival. Visitors can experience the vitality of the Wandjina tradition and learn the stories that have been passed on for centuries.

Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre www.mowanjumarts.com

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Gordon Barunga, Wunumbul Wandjina, 2009, 610 x 975 mm, acrylic on canvas Š Gordon Barunga, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Alison Burgu, Wandjina & Unguds, 2009, 690 x 500 mm, acrylic on canvas Š Alison Burgu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Top Gabriella Dolby, Wandjinas, 2009, 300 x 400 mm, acrylic on canvas © Gabriella Dolby, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Kirsty Burgu, Minirri - Ngarri Snakes & Wanalirri, 2009, 405 x 1005 mm, acrylic on canvas © Kirsty Burgu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Bottom Theresa Numendumah, Wandjina & Unguds, 2009, 415 x 505mm, acrylic on canvas © Theresa Numendumah, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Top Regina Karadada, Wunumbul Wandjinas & Unguds, 2009, 690 x 500mm: acrylic on canvas © Regina Karadada, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Bottom Gudu Mungulu, Wandjina, Gyorn Gyorn & Hunting Tools, 2009, 300 x 400 mm, acrylic on canvas © Gudu Mungulu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Raphael Matos, Wandjina and Unguds, 2009, 890 x 810mm: acrylic on canvas © Raphael Matos, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Marjorie Mungulu, Gyorns Gyorns, 2009, 400 x 400 mm, acrylic on canvas Š Marjorie Mungulu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Margaret Mungulu, The Wunnun (Sharing Law) 2009, 510 x 510 mm, acrylic on canvas Š Margaret Mungulu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Mildred Mungulu, Gjorn Gjorns, 2009, 300 x 400 mm, acrylic on canvas Š Mildred Mungulu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Sandra Mungulu, The Flood 2007, acrylic on canvas, 1910 x 1220 mm Š Sandra Mungulu, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Kevin Waina, Gyorns Gyorns, 2009, 870 x 980 mm, acrylic on canvas © Kevin Waina, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

Donny Woolagoodja, Wororra Country, 2009, 715 x 545 mm, acrylic on canvas © Donny Woolagoodja, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre PO Box 3 Derby WA 6728 Phone: 08 9191 1008 Fax: 08 9193 2591 Email: mowanjum.art@bigpond.com www.mowanjumarts.com Opening Hours: 9am to 5 pm (May to September 7 days) (October to April Mon to Friday) Closed January

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Leah Umbagai, Devil and the Two Boys, 2009, 300 x 400mm, acrylic on canvas Š Leah Umbagai, licensed by Viscopy 2010 Photography by Richard Glover

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