Balang (Mick) Kubarkku

Painted in Western Arnhem Land for Maningrida Arts and Culture, catalogue number GUB071

Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne

Estate of Eve Norton McGlashan, acquired from the above

This painting depicts the full moon Bullulurl, and the new moon Lirrk.

With regard to a related painting with the same subject matter in the National Gallery of Australia, Dr Luke Taylor writes:

“The ongoing incorporation new themes into an artist’s repertoire, is typified by Kubarkku’s Moon Dreaming series, which commenced in mid 1990. Most paintings relate to the Dird Djang sites in his estate close to Yirkarrakkal Outstation, including one major site that consists of a large circular hole in a sandstone outcrop, which the artist says was formed by the Rainbow Serpent piercing the rock.

'Dird Bininj ni but did mamburrinj. Nga-mambom run-wardde kure ngalyad duhkeng. Ya. Ngalengman wanjh djang morddi. Kanjdji ka-yo la kaddum ka-yo kun-wardde.

A long tome ago the moon was a man, but he turned himself into the moon. I have made a painting of the rock where the Rainbow Serpent pierced a hole in the stone. Then the dreaming lay on top of her. She is now underneath and the stone is on the top.'

The circular shape of the rock formation is reminiscent of the moon. According to local mythology the moon is associated with the concept of mortality and rebirth and the Moon argued this point with his adversary, the Spotted Quoll. The Quoll believed that death was final, but the Moon argued that when he died he would be renewed. The Moon then proceeded to prove his point by flying up into the heavens to become the moon that waxes and wanes each lunar month.

The Moon Dreaming shown here is from Ngandjadkordang, in Yurrkmanj clan estate Kakadu National Park. This place is connected to the Dird Djang site in the artist’s country at Yikarrakkal. Ngandjadkordang is the sacred site where the Moon died, hence the bones surrounding the moon.”

Margie West, Rainbow Sugarbag and Moon, Two Artists of the Stone Country: Bardayal Nadjamerrek and Mick Kubarkku, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 1995, p. 26

Cf. For other versions of this subject matter executed by the artist in 1990 see Ryan, J., Spirit in Land: Bark paintings from Arnhem Land, Melbourne, 1990, p. VII and p. 81, fig. 20 and West, M., Rainbow, Sugarbag and Moon: Two Artists of the Stone Country, Darwin, 1995, p. 3, pl. 1, p. 26, pl. 12, p. 31, and pl. 16.

Image Credits

Mick Kubarkku and family members at the Dird Djang, Moon Dreaming site, with a painting of this exact site depicting the circular hole that is said to have been created by the Rainbow Serpent piercing the rock; Margie West, 1994