225482339437

Published by CompNet Systems on



Wandjina & Ungud (cloud and rain spirits & totem)

The Wandjina is the creator spirit that belongs to us (the Wororra, Ngarinyin and Wunumbul people). He is the one that created everything, he also gave us our culture, law and songs and even the dreaming of each child before they are born.

The Ungud Snake story is about two young boys who didn’t listen to their elders or believe in them. There is a big waterhole an in it lies a large Ungud Snake. The old people told the kids not to go near that waterhole, but these boys thought the elders were tricking them so they wanted to find out for themselves. So they went to the waterhole and built a hideout from branches with small holes so that they can see ( just in case the elders told the truth) they looked at the billabong and it was calm. They banged two sticks together to make clapping noise and then they saw all the lilypads starting to move apart on the water and large logs came up from out of the water, then came bubbles and after a huge head coming out of the water to have a look around for who had been making all the noise. He hadn’t seen annone so he went back down and the lilypads went flat and the water went calm. Those two boys ran back to the camp and told the elders that they were right , there was a snake and the elders told them that they should have listened in the first place. The Ungud Snake also was the chosen animal in helping with the creation of mother earth, creating rivers, gorges, stream’s and helped with the formation of the earth. Still today it lives in these dark deep water hole’s in our country which doesn’t want to be disturbed.

 

Name: Theresa Numendumah/Arinda


Language: Ngarinyin


Community: Mowanjum


Biography:

Theresa first exhibited her work during 2008 at the Cultural Connection exhibition at the Artitia Art Gallery in Perth. She is one of the newest artists working at the Mowanjum Art and Cultural Centre and has exhibited her paintings in Broome, Derby and Mowanjum.

Theresa describes her first days as a painter: “Started painting in the (Mowanjum) hall - I couldn’t paint. Norval (Mark Norval) gave me the canvas. Asked how she leant to paint Theresa replies, “Just watched Mildred to get started”. (Mildred Mungula is an established Mowanjum artist.) “I painted like a little kid then. There are different sorts of pictures to paint. I draw them on the canvas before I paint.”

Theresa uses acrylic on canvas, working in a small to medium scale. Her paintings depict ”wandjinas, unguds, animals, fish, turtles and crocodiles” and gyorns gyorns, “gatherers of food”, representations that by traditional law are only produced by the Mowanjum community.

Ungud (the snake) in traditional storytelling is given to the father or grandfather through dreams or as a living animal and a gift from the Wandjina to the parent. The animal becomes a special gift to the unborn child. When the child dies the spirit returns to the animal. Individuals currently living in the Mowanjum community have their own “animal” totem.

Theresa’s work is distinguished by the use of very brightly coloured backgrounds infused with iridescent vibrancy and on this plane, graphic motifs of traditional stories connect and come alive.

Theresa was born and attended school in Derby. Through her paintings she expresses herself and keeps her cultural inheritance alive. Kirk, Theresa’s second child, has started working with pearl shell and is currently exhibiting a painting at the Mowanjum Art and Cultural Centre.

 

 

Group Exhibitions:

 

2009       Mowanjum Festival – Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre, Derby

2008       Shinju Matsuri Wandjina Budda Budding – Broome 6 Gallery

2008       Kimberley Art Prize - Derby

2008       Mowanjum Festival – Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre

2008    Cultural Connections - Artitja Art Gallery Perth


© the artist / art centre