Country and Culture

country and culture Bardayal Nadjamerrek AO (dec) Dorothy Napangardi Gawirrin Gumana Gulumbu Yunupingu (dec) Janangoo Butcher Cherel (dec) Jean Baptiste Apuatimi (dec) Judy Napangardi Watson Kathleen Petyarre Lena Nyadbi Regina Pilawuk Wilson Essay by Margie West The Custodians: Country and Culture Print Folio brings ways to express themselves. As one aspect of this us with their freshness of interpretation sparked by together ten of Australia’s highly respected process, printmaking has become an important the experimental possibilities of the print making Indigenous artists. Bardayal Nadjamerrek AO, Gawirrin adjunct to the usual practice of many remote technique. Gumana, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Kathleen Petyarre, community artists today, and its maturity is reected Dorothy Napangardi, Regina Wilson, Lena Nyadbi, in the sustained and meaningful creative partnerships Collectively these illustrations of material objects, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Janangoo Butcher Cherel and that now exist between the artists and the skill food species, ancestral sites and beings all have a Judy Napangardi Watson are artists with considerable providers. The success of the Custodians folio reects resonance with the artist’s lives, and all have creative achievements to their names. The rst six this process of thoughtful dialogue and real meaning, because everything in their society reects cited painters have won awards at the Telstra National collaboration between selected artists, Basil Hall and the totality of ancestral creation. In this respect Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 1. his team of expert printmakers. Every step of the mark-making is rarely a random or meaningless act. Butcher Cherel has recently been listed as one of production is developed in consultation with the artist What an artist can and cannot paint though, is largely Western Australia’s State Living Treasures, while until the print is nally signed and editioned. governed by their status as custodians and their Yunupingu and Nyadbi have had their iconic imagery attendant responsibilities to their ancestral law and incorporated in the new Parisian Musée du quai Branly The process begins by identifying synergies between their land. This is what provides the foundation for as part of the largest international commission of each artist’s painting style and extant printing many of the images in the folio, especially those Australian Indigenous art. techniques – in some truly inspired instances this has produced by the most senior and ceremonially resulted in the birth of new methods such as the important artists such as Gawirrin Gumana, Bardayal These men and women from remote communities punugraph, that utilises the artists’ familiarity with Nadjamerrek and Janangoo Butcher Cherel. The across the tropical north and desert regions of the pyrography to burn images onto a plywood plate.2 For women also have certain custodial roles that are Northern Territory and the Kimberley are indicative of example, silkscreen printing faithfully echoes the expressed in their illustration of signicant sites and the diversity and vitality of contemporary art practice vibrancy and tonal richness of Jean Baptiste and Judy stories. The only artist who eschews any ancestral from these regions. It’s here that the nation’s most Napangardi’s paintings and their colourful palettes. references in her work is Regina Wilson, who as a compelling art forms ourish, despite often being master weaver, has chosen to work with the imagery produced in environments of borderline poverty, poor The other artworks are better suited to etching, with of string. health and living conditions. And while these artists either silkscreened colours or additional etching obviously create in order to sell their work, they also plates being used to create images of great subtlety Many in this group of seasoned artists started want to present and communicate something about and depth. The nal result is a set of richly textured painting seriously in the 1990s. Only Gawirrin Gumana their cultural realities to the outside world and art has prints that capture the very soul of each artist’s style. and Bardayal Nadjamerrek have been painting for a become one of the most successful ways of doing this. The predominance of abstract imagery in the resulting longer period, starting their commercial careers in the Selling their art is therefore a cultural as well as an prints is striking, yet they are all very dierent, 1960s. Both are now at the point of handing on their economic transaction that seeks recognition and some reecting the varying artistic histories and cultural custodial responsibilities because of increasing age, sort of rapprochement with the broader society. backgrounds of each artist. Most are informed by the and it is likely that Bardayal’s print is one of the last Gawirrin emphasises this in relation to his Baraltja iconographic elements that typify their regional style. works he will ever produce. Over the past few years he print, ‘We will always draw that snake this way Even so, few of the works could be considered as has been passing on his artistic legacy to younger thinking that’s the way we show ourselves to the classic because over time, even some of the most members of his family and to emphasise this, his print Yolngu (Aboriginal) and to the Ngapagi (non senior artists have experimented with their visual includes a superimposed image painted by his Indigenous).’ Gulumbu Yunupingu also reects on language within accepted stylistic boundaries. Others grandson Gavin Namarnyilk. The imagery here is how her Garak, galaxy of stars, connects us all in have created their own highly personal idioms of particularly poignant, because it symbolises the common humanity because, ‘there is a link between expression to manifest some aspect of their cultural age-old transferral of custodial rights and people everywhere.’ identity. For those familiar with the artists’ work, many responsibilities to the next generation. In this way of the images are recognisable, in fact iconic Aboriginal culture continues to endure, to be This communication and engagement between depictions of their oeuvre: the strikingly bold graphics reinvigorated and to inspire. dierent cultures is also an integral aspect of the of Nyadbi’s stone points, the delicate tracery of dots in contemporary Indigenous practice itself, with artists Dorothy Napangardi’s Mina Mina, and the Gulumbu’s Margie West often working in close association with their non- shimmering canopy of stars. Others, like the prints by Emeritus Curator Indigenous peers, exchanging ideas and learning new Bardayal Nadjamerrek and Gawirrin Gumana, surprise Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Bardayal ‘Lofty’ Nadjamerrek, custodian ‘Mina Mina is our place – we are ‘Only my children can paint like this. I ‘When I look at the stars, I think about Butcher is the custodian of Imanara, for country of the upper Mann and custodians of that place. My aunties am custodian. There is nobody past the universe, all around, and about the area north east of Fitzroy Crossing Liverpool Rivers in western Arnhem were born there and they teach me – me. That’s why I am always staying at every tribe, every colour. In every corner where he grew up and later worked. Land, is revered for his encyclopedic proper way. this wanga (snakes hole/place). That’s of the world people can look up and ‘In his own words, Butcher paints from knowledge of the region. Bardayal lives Same way like in theJuku rrpa – when why I can’t move to other places. see the stars. This is my vision. There is his heart, his eyes, his ﬁ ngers and his in the heart of Ankung Kunred or Napanangka and Napangardi women Gangan, Garraparra, Baraltja, those a link between all people everywhere. mind. He makes images every day, with sugarbag (native bee honey) country, danced and sang up the country – the three that I am looking after, it’s in my The link between people on earth and only an occasional announcement of a where he was born and walked while spirits that still live at Mina Mina want memory these places, its connected stars in the sky – it’s real. It’s like holiday, ‘a no work’ day. Butcher growing up. us to visit, to dance there, to know the with the Gapu (water) Dhalwangu and Garma, where people from everywhere considers his painting as work and Through his paintings he brings to life songs and to sing right way but nobody Madarrpa (clans). I am a Dhalwangu and can come and relax, look up and see that it makes him happy. stories of ancestral beings and the sleeps there – people go visiting but Madarrpa I call gutharra (grandchild) stars. The Garma Festival is held at He makes this comment: fauna and ﬂ ora of his country. long way away sleeping – too sacred – Now I’m interested to hear what the Gulkula. My land where I grew up and ‘It is very hard. ‘I am looking after this place, this my the spirits are inside. No talking loud Ngapagi (white mans) law (Australian learnt from my father. Like the trees Like a job I do my painting. dreaming place put here by the earliest – no singing out. High Court) has to say about this they grow UP. People sit UP. They stand Thinking and feeling, ancestors, the old people a long time I grew up there as a little girl and we saltwater country.’ UP. The life force is UP. What is UP? “what job have I got to do”? ago, maybe by Djingalawarrewoni or walked around near Mina Mina long way. The stars – where the spirits go in death. Sometimes I dream. by God ... My ancestors gave me this My father digging water hole and all We are all growing UP.’ I think, I’ll make that, what I was place and I myself have a longing for the kids sitting down – dreaming last night, 3 4 this country.’ This country makes me smile – my (the) same thing (I paint).’ paintings are all about this place.

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