Celestial Earth

Works from the CBus Collection of Australian Art

19 November 2011 - 4 March 2012

This exhibition celebrates the work of Wally Mandarrk (1915 – 1987), a senior member of the Barabba clan from south-central Arnhem Land. Mandarrk had undergone initiation rituals and was believed to possess supernatural powers known in the Kunwinjku language as mankordan, which can be used for healing, sorcery or to journey over long distances at unnatural speeds. He was also thought to have had a close relationship with the mimih spirits that populated the area.

His bark paintings depict mimih spirits, bush food, animals and plants from his country, and are painted in a simple figurative style with thick, white pigment made from natural materials including ground bones. Mandarrk was one of the last artists of the Arnhem Land area known to paint on rock and his bark paintings have a strong correlation to this earlier practice in both the materials used and subjects depicted.

Image: Wally Mandarrk, Ngalkit (Saratoga-Scleropages jardini), Bokorn (spangled grunter) and Bikurr (Nailfish-Neosilurusater), natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark, n.d. Cbus Collection of Australian Art.