Wanjina

This is a singular and highly original painting of a Wandjina ancestor figure, a distinctive genre of Aboriginal painting that is inspired by early rock art paintings in the central and northern areas of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This early rock art features Gwion Gwion figures (which date to about 50,000 years ago) and more recent Wandjina images which are larger polychrome images of the great ancestral beings of the same name. These rock art images remain a constant source of inspiration for artists and it has been suggested that the transferral of Wandjina iconography to eucalyptus bark took place as early as the 1930s in response to demand established by missionaries who were looking to trade with the community when travelling by lugger along the Kimberley coastline. Hewn from a rectangular section of bark from the eucalyptus tree, two angled edges create a triangular peak at the top, rather like an icon which is narrower at the top and frames the painting. The surface of the bark is fairly uneven and has been prepped with a white primer, then covered with a thin reddish wash of red ochre to give a distinctive background hue. A thick reddish-brown color has been used to delineate the shoulders and head of the central figure in simple outline which sit on a broad torso with narrow, spindly arms. Daubs of dark brown paint create rows of loosely formed, uneven dots which extend in rows across the torso and decorate the arms. Less regularly spaced dots also animate the upper section of the painting bringing to life the background and highlighting a series of straight lines which emanate and radiate out from the figure’s head. A pair of thickly painted eyes and nose in dark black are outlined in strokes of the reddish-brown color creating lively features of the Wandjina’s face with the eyes especially animated.

Wandjina images are among the most powerful of all Aboriginal art. Wandjina is a generic term for a group of ancestral beings who come down from the sky and emerge from the sea. They bring with them the rains, and can control the elements, therefore maintaining the natural balance and fertility of the land. Wandjina are responsible for having shaped the features of the landscape during the creation period. After their time on earth, they are said to have lain down in caves and left their images in ochres and white clay on the cave and rock walls of the region. These impressive images can be up to six meters long. Artists belonging to the clan groups of direct descent from the Wandjina regularly care for the cave images by repainting them to restore their brightness and preserve the spiritual essence of the ancestors, which is invoked in ceremony and in art. The repainting of Wandjina on rock sites throughout the year in this way ensures the seasonal arrival of the monsoonal rains.

Waigan Djanghara painted in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in the 1970s and 1980s and was already in his late 50s when he first began creating bark paintings for commercial sale, through Warringarri Aboriginal Arts Center in Kununurra. He became prominent at Kalumburu in the mid-1980s where he and his wife Ignatia (also an artist) lived next to the Benedictine mission. There they were responsible for maintaining the remnants of their spirit ancestors by regular restoration of the painted cave walls. They also became specialists in executing this distinctive genre of Wandjina painting on eucalyptus bark with natural earth pigments, gathering their ochres from the local creek beds and using charcoal to create black paint. While images of the Wandjina created on bark (or slate or canvas) are viewed by some local artists as secondary reproductions of the focused emanation of power from Wandjina that adorn the cave walls of the most important ancestral sites, they also understood there to be a responsibility in perpetuating the power of these ancestral beings by repainting them in other media to "keep them strong." Decorated with lines of dots similar to body-painting designs during ceremony, they are intended to give the image a visual radiance which expresses the spiritual essence of the ancestral being. Other distinctive characteristics of representations depicting Wandjina include large round black eyes fringed with short lashes, an almost circular head surrounded by a halo or headdress representing hair, clouds and the lightning that the Wandjina control. The inclusion of a mouth is rare. Its absence is most often attributed to a belief that painting a mouth on the Wandjina’s face would bring perpetual rain and flooding.

Maia Nuku, Evelyn A.J. Hall & John A Friede Associate Curator, AAOA, 2019