GINGER RILEY MUNDUWALAWALA

Commissioned by Alcaston House Gallery, Melbourne in 1994
Private collection 

National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Award, 1995, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin,
Mother Country in Mind: The Art of Ginger Riley Mundawalawala, exh. cat., 1997, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 16 July - 22 September 1997, cat. no. 54

Ryan, J., Ginger Riley, National Gallery of Victoria, 1997, p.95 (illus)

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 In 1993 Munduwalawala was the artist-in-residence at Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs. This was a period of intense activity which saw the artist explore "a totally new idea – painting Limmen Bight country from 'top to bottom' as if 'seen from a cloud.'" (Ryan, 1997, p.34). 1994 was a relatively quiet period for the artist however it gave him time to reflect on the ideas about the depiction of clouds he had developed at Araluen. Clouds are a recurring motif in the artist's paintings of the landscape during the monsoon season as they are an important part of his mother's Dreaming.

In 1994 Munduwalawala decided to revisit a painting from 1990, Ngak Ngak and The Four Archers, (ibid, p.61, pl.19, illus.) which features a white stippled ground, similar to that with which he experimented in other paintings of the period. This painting depicts precisely the same landscape as that in The Four Archers, 1994: Ngak Ngak sits on one of the Archer hills and the composition if framed by the liver tree and Garimala the Rainbow Serpent on the left (the artist often depicted Garimala as two snakes), and two ancestors flanking another tree on the right. These elements are extended to the lower edge of the picture, drawing the viewer into the scene. In The Four Archers, 1994, however, the artist has 'pulled back' the view so that the landscape is now seen from a distance. A significant addition to this composition is the image of Garimala in the lower right, again as two snakes, journeying from the Four Archers to Nyamiyukanji in the Limmen Bight River where he dives under the water and transforms into the Rainbow (ibid, p.30)

This painting is sold with an accompanying Alcaston Gallery certificate and images of the artist executing the painting