UNKNOWN KUNWINJKU ARTIST, WESTERN ARNHEM LAND | UNTITLED

Painted in the Western Arnhem Land region circa 1960

Private Collection, New Zealand

Sotheby's, Melbourne, Aboriginal Art, 25 July, 2005 (AU0692), lot 51

Fiona Brockhoff, Melbourne

Cf. for stylistically related depictions of ancestral insects, see Holmes, Sandra Le Brun, Yirawala Artist and Man, The Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1972, pp.8-9, 80.

This extraordinary bark painting is likely to relate to aspects of the Lorrkon (Hollow Log) Mortuary Ceremony of the Kinwinjku people, in particular to Marlindji (the Praying Mantis) Djang (Dreaming site).

Dr. Luke Taylor writes “Another important Djang associated with Lorrkon is Marlindji, the Praying Mantis, who is described as one of the beings that carried the coffin on the creation journey. Marlindji is painted on the burial pole as a skeletal figure. It is also relevant to consider the appropriateness of this figure to imagery of life after death, since the male Praying Mantis can live for a time after its head has been devoured by the female during mating and these species moult as they grow emerging anew and casting aside a spectral skin of their former body form.” Bruno David and Ian J. McNiven, eds., Bodies Revealed: X-ray Art in Western Arnhem, Oxford Handbooks Online, p.15.

The central figures dominating this painting appear to be Marlindji (Praying Mantis), with other ancestral beings that are associated with Lorrkon, including goannas and maggots, above and below. The heads of each ancestral being are painted similarly to the way mimih and other spiritual figures are often represented by the Kinwinjku. The fine linear depiction of the insects, and the manner in which the heads on the beings are represented, bear stylistic similarities to early paintings by Yirawala, and it is possible this may be a work by this acclaimed artist.