Yawkyawk, 2003

Kurrajong (Brachychiton diversifolius) with ochre pigment and PVC fixative

187 cm (length)

Est. $2,500 – $3,500

Hammer $4,600

Provenance: Maningrida Arts & Culture, Maningrida, NT, Cat No. 4226-03 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Maningrida Arts & Culture
Artwork story: The Dangkorlo clan outstation at Barrihdjowkkeng is established beside a billabong that is a Yirridjdja moiety sacred site for the Yawkyawk spirits. These young woman spirit beings live in the freshwater streams and rock pools of the stone country, their long hair trailing like blooms of green algae, their lower bodies taking the form of a fish tail. The Yawkyawk, also known as Ngalkunburriyaymi, are considered by the Kuninjku to be alive and living in freshwater sites across their country today. Features of the landscape are equated with parts of their bodies: a bend in a river may be the Yawkyawk's tail, a billabong her head. Owen Yalandja is a senior member of the Dangkorlo clan and the custodian of this mythology in sculptural form. He learned carving from his father Crusoe Kuningbal, who developed the mimih spirit in sculptural form in the early 1970s, and over time made the yawkyawk form his own. As Apolline Kohen, then Arts Director of Maningrida Arts & Culture, wrote for Yalandja's 2004 solo exhibition at Annandale Galleries, in the early 1990s he experimented with the dot patterns his father had taught him, first creating arcs to suggest scales, then refining them into small V-shaped marks to capture the scaly sheen of the watery being. Yalandja himself has said of his practice: "I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas... this style is my own, no one else does them like this." Yalandja selects only kurrajong for his figures, favouring it for its strength across the grain, which allows three-dimensional carved elements without risk of splitting. He chooses trunks that are thin and naturally curvilinear to give each Yawkyawk its sinuous, swimming form. This 2003 work, carved at Barrihdjowkkeng and acquired directly from Maningrida Arts & Culture, is a definitive example.

Catalogues158 of 257

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Sale 3 · Lot 10

Owen Yalandja

b. c.1962

Region: Arnhem Land
Community: Barrihdjowkkeng
Language group: Kuninjku – Dangkorlo clan

Yawkyawk, 2003

Kurrajong (Brachychiton diversifolius) with ochre pigment and PVC fixative

187 cm (length)

Est. $2,500 – $3,500

Hammer $4,600

Provenance: Maningrida Arts & Culture, Maningrida, NT, Cat No. 4226-03 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Maningrida Arts & Culture
Artwork story: The Dangkorlo clan outstation at Barrihdjowkkeng is established beside a billabong that is a Yirridjdja moiety sacred site for the Yawkyawk spirits. These young woman spirit beings live in the freshwater streams and rock pools of the stone country, their long hair trailing like blooms of green algae, their lower bodies taking the form of a fish tail. The Yawkyawk, also known as Ngalkunburriyaymi, are considered by the Kuninjku to be alive and living in freshwater sites across their country today. Features of the landscape are equated with parts of their bodies: a bend in a river may be the Yawkyawk's tail, a billabong her head. Owen Yalandja is a senior member of the Dangkorlo clan and the custodian of this mythology in sculptural form. He learned carving from his father Crusoe Kuningbal, who developed the mimih spirit in sculptural form in the early 1970s, and over time made the yawkyawk form his own. As Apolline Kohen, then Arts Director of Maningrida Arts & Culture, wrote for Yalandja's 2004 solo exhibition at Annandale Galleries, in the early 1990s he experimented with the dot patterns his father had taught him, first creating arcs to suggest scales, then refining them into small V-shaped marks to capture the scaly sheen of the watery being. Yalandja himself has said of his practice: "I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas... this style is my own, no one else does them like this." Yalandja selects only kurrajong for his figures, favouring it for its strength across the grain, which allows three-dimensional carved elements without risk of splitting. He chooses trunks that are thin and naturally curvilinear to give each Yawkyawk its sinuous, swimming form. This 2003 work, carved at Barrihdjowkkeng and acquired directly from Maningrida Arts & Culture, is a definitive example.