111982092224

Published by CompNet Systems on

Wak Wak

This painting depicts a sacred site at ‘Kurrurldul’, an outstation south of Maningrida.

The ‘rarrk’, or abstract crosshatching, on this work represents the design for the crow totem ancestor called ‘Djimarr’. Today this being exists in the form of a rock, which is permanently submerged at the bottom of Kurrurldul Creek. The ‘Djimarr’ rock in the stream at Kurrurldul is said to move around and call out in a soft hooting tone at night. Both the stone itself and the area around it are considered sacred.

The imagery represents the rock mentioned above at the bottom of Kurrurldul creek, which is the final transmutation of the dreaming ancestor ‘Djimarr’. Finally, the pattern used here is also the crow design used in the sacred ‘Mardayin’ ceremony, which is a large regional patri-moiety ceremony now rarely conducted in central and eastern Arnhem Land.

Categories: Maningrida Arts & Culture

Name: Alison Kuwanjguwanj

Language: Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Alison Kuwanjguwanj learned to weave from her mother Frewa Bardaluna, a master fibre artist who had numerous exhibitions with leading Australian commercial galleries.  Alison's work is distinguished by her soft tonal range, strong sense of design and intricate technique.

Alison predominately uses gun-menama (pandanus spiralis) it make woven panels, dilly bags and 2D sculptures of animals and yawkyawks (female water spirits). To prepare the pandanus the inner leaves of the plant are collected using a hook. Each V-shaped leaf is first split in half along its spine. After removing the sharp spines, the two surfaces of the leaf are then split away from other. After this preparation, the pandanus is boiled in a billycan with plant materials to dye the fibre. Like her contemporaries, Alison only uses natural dyes and achieves enormous variation. Common colours in her work include:

- barra gu-jirra: the soft, white and fleshy end of the pandanus leaf imparts green to the fibre.

-  mun-gumurduk/ gala (Pogonolobus reticulatus): a bright yellow root that is crushed and put in a billycan with the fibre and boiled. It creates yellow when boiled once and deep orange hues when boiled multiple times.

- ngalpur (Haemodorum brevicaule): a bright red root which yields a range of purply red to brown colours.

- Baluk: ashes of certain plants are added to the boiling billycan with the fibre and dye plants to alter the colour that is imparted to the fibre. The fruiting body of gulpiny (Banksia denanta) is burnt and the ashes added to other day plants to make the colour pink. 


(Margie West, 1995, Maningrida - the Language of Weaving)

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