Malcolm
Jagamarra
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$Aud 10,000 + GST 10% for sales
in Australia
The sky has many stories. Some are sacred but some we can tell. This painting is the story of my sister Nagamarra who was responsible to feed all the family in the sky. She did this by pulling out her breasts, squeezing them and spreading milk across the sky, thus creating the Milky Way. The painting shows lightning and rain falling through the heavens to the earth down below. The stars which also represent the campfires of the Ancestors who traveled the land in the Dreamtime are used for time pieces during ceremonies at night. The concentric circles show thunder echoing across the sky and moving through the land. In Aboriginal life where people sleep under the stars with little shelter, the night sky is enthralling and dominating. Those people in the desert, are aware of nearly every star in the heavens and most of these stars have stories associated with their origins. All over Australia, it is believed that the stars and planets were once men, women and animals in the Creation Time. The Milky Way with all its soft glowing stars and dark starless patches is a place with many landmarks for the aboriginal people. The Milky Way is considered by the aboriginals as a visual representation or the microcosm within and tracking the inner self is knowing the pathways of the Milky Way. Those pathways remain esoteric and can only be released by the artist during ritual. The Milky Way is sacred as a residence for totemic beings. Seven Sisters (the cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, known as the Pleiades) are being pursued by a Jakamarra man. The morning Star in Orion's belt. The story tells of the women, in a final attempt to escape Jakamarra, turn into fire at Kurlunyalimpa and ascend the heavens to become stars. This Dreaming is closely associated with men's secret ceremonies. The colours in this painting reflect the night sky looking through the clouds and lightning onto the Milky Way with its brilliant glowing stars.
Malcolm
Jagamarra "I
will always acknowledge that the spiritualism of this great continent is
forever embedded in its natural environment and that as
indigenous peoples we are custodians of its sacred religions." Malcolm Jagamarra was born at Willowra in the Tanami Desert near Central Mt Stuart 1955. This country, 500km to the North West of Alice Springs, bears the Aboriginal name of Pirla Warna Warna and is home to the Lander River Warlpiri. As a group they are responsible for all the water and river systems that run through their country. Malcolm is the son of Minnie Napanangka, a Warlpiri woman, and Gerry Maloney an Irish bushman. His traditional country, Wantapari, is about 60km west of Willowra. As a child he travelled the land on walkabout with his mother and families. They lived in a traditional way honoring customs and beliefs that are over 40,000 years old. At the time, as part of the 'Aboriginal Assimilation Program', all part Aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed in white environments. Because of this, Jagamarra's mother would hide him in the bush whenever they visited a white homestead. At the age of six, Jagamarra was discovered by the authorities and taken to Adelaide where he spent the next eighteen years. He matriculated from Adelaide Boys High School in 1972 and starred in League Football for North Adelaide until 1975. In 1978 he returned to Alice Springs and was reunited with his family for the first time since 1960. In 1983 Jagamarra began on a cycle of manhood initiation ceremonies he had missed as a boy. It was then that he learnt the secret songs and dances of his tribe, the Lander River Warlpiri. He began to paint in 1985, evolving and developing his art from his tribe's ceremonies and his new-found cultural inspiration. Willowra is not a strong art centre but Malcolm has family ties in Yuendumu and Mt Allen both of which do have ongoing connections with the desert art movement. The
artist also acknowledges his debt to those who supported him in the early
days of his painting career. He recalls how Michael Hollow, for instance,
bought all of his available paintings at Woodend, Victoria in the late
1980’s. Since that time he has been supported in various ways by the
family in Sydney, Melbourne and Alice Springs. He has written, Through
my association with the Hollow family I have traveled the world with
exhibitions and have interacted with gallery dealers, curators, critics,
art collectors and art enthusiasts who have been stimulated by the visual
qualities and enriched by the spiritual ancestry of Aboriginal art. The respect is mutual for Semon Deeb has predicted that Malcolm will become ‘an icon’ for the coming generation of desert painters. Perhaps these claims could be dismissed as commercial hype but at the time of writing the Hollow family remain, by far, the largest dealers in desert art in the world and Malcolm Jagamarra’s star is steadily increasing in luminosity. ‘Desert art has given everyone a chance to learn about Aboriginal Dreaming’, says Jagamarra. ‘Our art reflects not just the land but its mythology, song and dance. The symbols, that you now term ‘iconography’ (writing with pictures), and are the oldest in the world’. Jagamarra was the first Aboriginal Artist to use oils on his paintings and he is the leader in his style. He is considered to be one of the most talented and dynamic Aboriginal artists working in Australia and has been instrumental in forging new directions for traditional art. His sister, Janet Long Nakamarra, is one of the rising stars of the Australian Aboriginal art world and together they are helping to foster, explain and retain their ancient culture. During 1992 Malcolm was Artist in Residence at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and in the following year was Artist in Residence at Sydney’s Macquarie University. He is an articulate man who believes strongly in the Aboriginal causes of Land Rights and Self -Determination. His
paintings have been widely exhibited throughout the world and are included
in the noted Kelton Foundation Collection in the USA. During 1999 work by
him was exhibited in Rome, Washington and New York. He attended and spoke
at each of those exhibitions. |
