Fireworks (No1)
This is Maudie’s interpretation of fireworks exploding and showering down as she watches in awe. The beautiful blue and yellow colours light up the night sky.
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Kulyakartu
“Long time ago I been there. It is my grandmother’s, grandfather’s, father’s, [and] mother’s country, Kulyakartu. I am painting this particular place. It keeps me connected, [gives me a] sense of belonging [to] tell my grandmother’s story through my art. Where she was born, I’m a part of that.
It makes me feel proud painting. Most important is telling the story behind the painting so people can understand where I am coming from. Kulyakartu is our ngurra (home Country, camp). I will continue telling the story through my art.”
– Derrick Butt
This painting depicts Kulyakartu, Derrick’s ancestral ngurra (home Country, camp). Kulyakartu is a large area in the far north of the Martu homelands, near the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Kulyakartu is mostly flat grass Country, and is known as a good hunting area. In particular, parnajarrpa (goanna), wild cats, and lunki (witchetty grub) are found in abundance here. In the wantajarra (wet season) the dry lakes in the region fill with water.
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Kulyakartu
“Long time ago I been there. It is my grandmother’s, grandfather’s, father’s, [and] mother’s country, Kulyakartu. I am painting this particular place. It keeps me connected, [gives me a] sense of belonging [to] tell my grandmother’s story through my art. Where she was born, I’m a part of that.
It makes me feel proud painting. Most important is telling the story behind the painting so people can understand where I am coming from. Kulyakartu is our ngurra (home Country, camp). I will continue telling the story through my art.”
– Derrick Butt
This painting depicts Kulyakartu, Derrick’s ancestral ngurra (home Country, camp). Kulyakartu is a large area in the far north of the Martu homelands, near the Percival Lakes region of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Kulyakartu is mostly flat grass Country, and is known as a good hunting area. In particular, parnajarrpa (goanna), wild cats, and lunki (witchetty grub) are found in abundance here. In the wantajarra (wet season) the dry lakes in the region fill with water.
377810582265680
Lorrkon
Jennifer Wurrkidj
TITLE Lorrkon (Hollow funeral log)
YEAR 2010
MEDIUM Screen print
DETAILS 2 screen design, 1000 x 420mm
Before, a long time ago, when old people would die they would put their bones inside the lorrkkon and leave it outside. It is part of ceremony. The old people remembering and thinking about that person who passed away, there is lots of talking about where that lorrkkon needs to go.
My father, James Iyuna, taught me how to paint, to paint that rarrk. That memory is from him, he taught my sister Deborah and me. This story is from him, this design. When he was painting and drawing we would watch and we would learn.
Jennifer Wurrkidj
Jennifer is a Kuninjku artist from the Kurulk clan whose country lies around the outstation of Mumeka in central Arnhem Land. She has depicted lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin), kun-karninj (digging stick) and mandjabu (fishtrap) in this design.
The Lorrkkon or hollow-log coffin ceremony is the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony might take place many years after the person has died, and involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log that is decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into the ground where it slowly decays over many years.
The lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin) is made from the trunk of a termite-hollowed manbuluduk (stringybark tree, Eucalyptus tetradonta) and is decorated with totemic emblems. The western Arnhem Land version of the Lorrkkon ceremony involves the singing of sacred songs to the accompaniment of karlikarli, a pair of sacred boomerangs used as rhythm instruments. During the final evening of the ceremony, dancers decorate themselves with kapok down or, today, cotton wool, and conduct much of the final segments of the ceremony in the secrecy of a restricted men’s camp. The complete ceremony may stretch over a period of two weeks, but on the last night the bones of the deceased, which have been kept in a bark container, or today wrapped in cloth and kept in a suitcase, are taken out, and are painted with red ochre and placed inside the hollow-log coffin.
At first light on the final morning of the Lorrkkon ceremony, the men appear, coming out of their secret bush camp carrying the lorrkkon towards the women’s camp. The two groups call to each other using distinct ceremonial calls. The women have prepared a hole for the lorrkkon to be placed into, and when it is stood upright, women in particular kinship relationships to the deceased dance around the lorrkkon in a jumping/shuffling motion. It is then often covered with a tarpaulin and left to slowly decay.
377810582265678
Lorrkon
Jennifer Wurrkidj
TITLE Lorrkon (Hollow funeral log)
YEAR 2010
MEDIUM Screen print
DETAILS 2 screen design, 1000 x 420mm
Before, a long time ago, when old people would die they would put their bones inside the lorrkkon and leave it outside. It is part of ceremony. The old people remembering and thinking about that person who passed away, there is lots of talking about where that lorrkkon needs to go.
My father, James Iyuna, taught me how to paint, to paint that rarrk. That memory is from him, he taught my sister Deborah and me. This story is from him, this design. When he was painting and drawing we would watch and we would learn.
Jennifer Wurrkidj
Jennifer is a Kuninjku artist from the Kurulk clan whose country lies around the outstation of Mumeka in central Arnhem Land. She has depicted lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin), kun-karninj (digging stick) and mandjabu (fishtrap) in this design.
The Lorrkkon or hollow-log coffin ceremony is the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony might take place many years after the person has died, and involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log that is decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into the ground where it slowly decays over many years.
The lorrkkon (hollow-log coffin) is made from the trunk of a termite-hollowed manbuluduk (stringybark tree, Eucalyptus tetradonta) and is decorated with totemic emblems. The western Arnhem Land version of the Lorrkkon ceremony involves the singing of sacred songs to the accompaniment of karlikarli, a pair of sacred boomerangs used as rhythm instruments. During the final evening of the ceremony, dancers decorate themselves with kapok down or, today, cotton wool, and conduct much of the final segments of the ceremony in the secrecy of a restricted men’s camp. The complete ceremony may stretch over a period of two weeks, but on the last night the bones of the deceased, which have been kept in a bark container, or today wrapped in cloth and kept in a suitcase, are taken out, and are painted with red ochre and placed inside the hollow-log coffin.
At first light on the final morning of the Lorrkkon ceremony, the men appear, coming out of their secret bush camp carrying the lorrkkon towards the women’s camp. The two groups call to each other using distinct ceremonial calls. The women have prepared a hole for the lorrkkon to be placed into, and when it is stood upright, women in particular kinship relationships to the deceased dance around the lorrkkon in a jumping/shuffling motion. It is then often covered with a tarpaulin and left to slowly decay.
377810582265676
Mankorlod Rock
A simple, symbolic two colour design dating back to 2010. Ruth has depicted the shapes of the rock formations in her rocky country homeland of Mankorlod.
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Mankorlod Rock
A simple, symbolic two colour design dating back to 2010. Ruth has depicted the shapes of the rock formations in her rocky country homeland of Mankorlod.
1106920316
DALAWA
This is Zenneic’s mother’s country. Located near Table Lands Station on the Gibb River road this place is called Dalawa.
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DARNDAL NGARRANGARRNI
Turtle Dreaming
This is the Darndal Dreaming, which is south of the Warmun Community.
Recently the Darndal rock, which is said to be Darndal, was demolished by road works. Eileen and other old women in the community are upset by this.
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Tharriyarrel (Rainbow)
Here the clouds have come out. It is starting to rain. Rain is falling from the sky. The rainbow stands high above.
The rainbow appears when it is raining in the wet season.
This nail tailed wallaby, a kind of little kangaroo, puts his tail down here in the ground and the rainbow comes out on us. The blue tongue lizard too, can stand up and make the rainbow. It is the red coloured kind of blue tongue lizard. Not the one with blue-green markings, only the red one. When she stands up she puts her tail down hard in the ground. Then this good thing, red, green and yellow, comes from her backside. She makes it good in the sky when it rains in the wet. It looks beautiful high up here when we look from the ground.
When the rainbow stands up it stops the very big rain that had been falling. She hunts the rain away and it stops.
“Don’t rain. Go that way.” She tells it “Go away over there and rain far away.”