BOBBY BARRDJARAY NGANJMIRA

Bobby Barrdjaray Nganjmirra is among the best known of the older generation of Kunwinjku artists, which includes Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek, Yirawala and Dick Nguleingulei Murrumurru. The Nganjmirra family has preserved a strong and recognisable figurative style throughout successive generations. His younger brothers Jimmy Nakkurridjdjilmi Nganjmirra (c.1917-1982) and Peter Nganjmirra (1927-1987) were also well known painters, and many of their children and grandchildren have established artistic careers.

Nganjmirra was born around 1915 at Malworn, his father’s country between the Goomadeer and Liverpool rivers in West Arnhem Land. Marlwon is best known as a Yawk Yawk (female water spirit) Dreaming site, the primary Dreaming of Bobby Nganjmirra’s branch of the Djalama clan. Nganjmirra was brought up in Marlwon living a traditional lifestyle, visiting Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) for a short time in 1930 at the invitation of a stockman who visited the group. He subsequently spent a short time at school there and on Goulburn Island. After the Second World War he worked with the anthropologists Roland and Catherine Berndt and later, in 1975, he became a member of the Aboriginal Arts Board, having by that time concentrated on bark painting for some years.

Most of Bobby Nganjmirra’s work was produced in ochre on bark, although he also did sketches on paper and a number of large scale ochre and acrylic works on paper for the John W. Kluge Commission at the end of his life in 1991-2. These were undertaken at the Injalak Art Centre, which was established in 1989. The incredibly wide range of his subject matter, from many sacred and profane stories to natural subjects, is testament to his high ceremonial status, knowledge and artistic confidence. He painted the stories of his own Yirridjdja moiety clan such as Luma Luma, Likanaya and Marrayka (the Yawk Yawk Sisters, first ancestors of the Djalama clan), as well as those of neighbouring areas such as Nimbuwah rock and Baby Dreaming from Kudjekbinj. His style is notable for its expressiveness - the mouths, eyes and noses of his figures contort to many emotive shapes and their limbs appear to dance in all directions. A naive and sketch-like stylistic tendency in many of his works is more the result of the primacy of 'story' in his painting over decorative qualities. Like many other western Kunwinjku painters he favoured multiple figures in his compositions, again heightening the sense of narrative. Most western Kunwinjku art draws upon the figurative rock painting tradition, and some of Bobby Nganjmirra’s earliest works display the parallel red hatching on white silhouettes typical of works on rock. However he soon turned to cross-hatching, a style associated with painting for the Mardayin ceremony.

Bobby Nganjmirra’s work has been featured in a number of major exhibitions, including Old Masters - Australia’s Great Bark Artists at the National Museum of Australia in 2013, The Continuing Tradition at the National Gallery of Australia in 1989 and Kunwinjku Bim at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1984.

After his death Bobby was known for some time by his skin name Nawakadj, as in the monograph on his stories and work Kunwinjku Spirit: Nawakadj Nganjmirra, Artist and Story-teller edited by Neil McLeod. However, in Gunbalanya he is still sometimes referred to by his nickname “Ten Million” (the price he was purported to have raise for his paintings), reflecting the humour of this early master of modern Kunwinjku art.

Profile author: Dan Kennedy

References

Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council,1979, Oenpelli Bark Painting, Ure Smith, Sydney. (C)

Allen, L., 1975, Time Before Morning: Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines, Thomas Crowell Company, New York.

Brody, A., 1984, Kunwinjku Bim: Western Arnhem Land Paintings from the Collection of the Aboriginal Arts Board, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.(C)

Caruana, W., 1993, Aboriginal Art, Thames and Hudson, London. (C)

Groger-Wurm, H., 1977, 'Schematisation in Aboriginal bark paintings.' In Ucko, P. (ed.), Form in Indigenous Art, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Hill, M., and McLeod, N.,1984, From the Ochres of Mungo, Aboriginal Art Today, Dorr McLeod Publishing, West Heidleberg, Victoria. (C)

Isaacs, J., 1984, Australia's Living Heritage, Arts of the Dreaming, Lansdowne Press, Sydney. (C)

Isaacs, J., 1989, Australian Aboriginal Paintings, Weldon Publishing, New South Wales. ; Norton, F., 1975, Aboriginal Art, Western Australian Art Gallery Board with the assistance of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council.

Ryan, J., 1990, Spirit in Land, exhib. cat., National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

1990, Balance 1990: Views, Visions, Influences, exhib. cat., Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. (C)

Sydney Morning Herald, 12/6/1992 (Artists seek aid for legal action). ; Sydney Morning Herald, 12/6/1992 (Aboriginal art in a spin over row).

1994, Kunwinjku Art from Injalak 1991-1992, The John W. Kluge Commission, Museum Arts International Pty. Ltd., North Adelaide.