The Milky Way is a sacred thing for many different tribes, it means seasons and hunting. You listen to stories of the Milky Way and that inspires me to paint the it, inspired by working with the Elders and artists before me. The color palette that I use in the Milky Way are mainly ochre colors- raw sienna, black, white and greys- the colors of the Country.
The old people talk about the Milky Way, different stories about it. In the Milky Way, you can see an emu. When the Milky Way turns up in the cold season, it means it’s time for hunting, you know the food will be really fat.
About the Artist:
June is a strong Yawuru-Bardi Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi woman who expresses her love for country and ancestral dream stories through painting acrylic and ochres on canvas.
June draws her strength and inspirations from all four ancestors’ tribes deep in her blood with historical stories.
From earth, sky, rivers, trees, plants, oceans, islands, animals, spirits, seasons, creation time to connection to country bond by aboriginal sacred laws and culture.
She grew up in Broome, or Rubibi as it is known by Yawaru people. “Broome is my home, where I was grounded and where I was loved by my Dad’s family”
“My mum is Yindjibarndi-Ngarluma and my dad is Bardi-Djawi and Yawaru. My mum was a very cultural woman, so I’d always end up back out at Warralong and Strelley with the Mardu people. We’d go out for law and culture, and every now and then we’d go past Woodbrook, Roebourne, passing by, following cultural ceremonies. It was an important time. All the elders took their positions very seriously.
By the time I was fourteen I couldn’t read and write because I missed too much school. You know, I was a bush kid. It was very hard for me because mum was trying to keep her culture alive while I went to St Mary’s in Broome with all the nuns and brothers. I was talking three to four different languages – Mardu, Ngarluma, Yindjibarndi and Bardi.
If I spoke them languages at school, they would hit me with sticks and rulers because you had to speak English. Mum would say ‘Don’t speak your language in school.’ But I couldn’t differentiate between speaking the language at home and speaking it in school.
I’ve been coming back and forth from Broome to Roebourne since I was young. Nanna used to live in Roebourne but they left for Port Hedland because all the pastoral companies were putting up fences, stopping people from accessing the land. They removed everyone from Country. Then there was the fighting for equal wages. My uncle, their little son, also passed away. Someone said it was from starvation, but we don’t know what happened.
But they would go back all the time, my grandmother and Judith’s grandmother. They are all sisters you see. Very close. They’re Yindjibarndi, Ngarluma and Kariyarra, so I have connections through all those clans. We would go on Country with our grandparents on the back of an old truck. Everyone used to jump on the back with their swags and the camp dogs. There were always a lot of dogs. Dogs everywhere!
I would also watch my grandfathers sing all the time. Paddy Djiagween, he would sing, sing, sing, all day! He would sing for the rain and for the fish to come. But he was too old when I was young, to do arts and crafts. My other grandfather, Adam Barker, was a lot younger than him. He was a Warnman desert man and he did traditional carvings; boomerangs, shields, spears. He tried to teach us how to do the little animals like blue tongue, snake and goanna. All the animals that you see on Country, he would make them out of carvings, with traditional patterns over the top.
I didn’t end up with that skill but I ended up watching him and transferring those patterns onto canvas, like my jellyfish. I love painting the jellyfish. I’ve been painting them forever. They are very beautiful.
For thousands of years we were hunters and gatherers, simple people. We navigated through the stars, we were engineers. We weren’t conquers or colonisers. From the beginning, we were our own tribes and had our own culture and we have the right to maintain that.
You can take Aboriginal people, chain them or put them down. You can try to turn them into a white man, but you can never take away their spirit, their culture and connection to Country.”
