EAST KIMBERLEY ARTISTS
Paintings from the East Kimberley Region
Online Exhibition
July, 2024
My association with the East Kimberley artists began during the early 1980s, only a year or two after paintings by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji were first seen by art collectors in Sydney and Melbourne. During the nascence of this art movement, Anne and I were in our mid 40s and we spent endless nights swagging out by the fire on gibber and pindan plains under a panoply of stars during early visits to Balgo Hills and Warmun.
Looking back, I realise what an incredible privilege and eye-opening, life-changing, experience it was to sit beside Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Jack Britten, and their clansmen and women, as they retold stories of the brutality that began after gold was discovered in the region during the 1880s. How the Gidja and Mirruwong people had found their world shrinking and how they survived during the bloody confrontation that inevitably followed.
- Adrian Newstead
Rover Thomas
Bedford Hills, 1995
earth pigments and archival binder on linen
87 x 114 cm
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Commissioned by Helen Loveridge at Warmun Pensioner Unit, 1995
Outback Alive Cat No. OA1395
Private Collection, Melbourne
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Rammey Ramsey
Untitled, 2005
natural earth pigments and synthetic binders on linen
122 x 135 cm
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Jirrawun Arts, W.A (Cat No. obscured by frame)
William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, 2004
Private Collection, Sydney
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Rammey Ramsey
Ragiban (“Rocky Bar”), 2004
natural ochre and synthetic polymer paint on canvas
150.5 x 180 cm
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Jirrawun Arts, W.A Cat No. RR62004-31
William Mora Galleries, VIC, 2004 (stamped verso)
Private Collection, Melbourne
Private Collection, Sydney
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Rammey Ramsey: Deeper than Paint on Canvas, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, August - September 2004
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This painting shows a place called Rocky Bar or Ragiban. The English name 'Rocky Bar' is based in a Gija word 'Ragiban' meaning 'a place with lots of ants'. At the top of the painting is a large rocky mountain range. The circles along the top represent little caves which are the home of lots of rock wallabies. Rock wallabies are among the smallest of the kangaroo's relations. They look out from high on the ledges in the hills. There are little springs everywhere through the hills. It was a good hunting ground for Gija people in the time before the arrival of Europeans.
Below the mountain range we see the stock road. The square shape on the right is the stock camp and the two circles are the separate camps for black and white stockmen. This represents the artist's experiences working as a stockman for the major part of his life.
Part of the Fitzroy River runs across the lower part of the painting. A deep permanent water hole is represented by the circle on the river.
Wunyjurruny-nu daam gerluwurr. Yilag deyema gurlumbi nginiyinde-burru yilag. Dala roadel belegan nyinya bananel. Nginy gurluny yilag yingerewuny, ngarranggarniny gurluny. Jiyilem jinbida-ngarri mamaj benijtha dumum.
Those are the rock wallaby homes up the top. Down at the bottom is their water hole. The road runs through the middle of the painting. The water hole down there is an important place that is dangerous for people who do not belong to the country. People belonging to the country must put water on the heads of strangers they take there.
Dama wajbalum-burru daam, jiyilem-burru daam dam. Ngurriny, walilig jimberrayangbende bulumanel ngurrul, majurrum-ngarri wumberramande ngenengga. Diyena walilig jimberrayangbende wajbalem. Nyimberranybende dumburumbu now, ngelamugu Garlmanterre-gili.
There is the white people's camp and there is the Aboriginal people's camp (the two circles). There is the yard where they used to put all the bullocks (the rectangle). They would put all the bullocks in there and then take them back through the gap to Elgee Cliffs station.
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I remember Queenie relating the story of the massacre that took place at Horse Creek after Paddy Rattigan’s father killed and gutted a bullock. Brutal in seeking retribution, the owner shot people one by one at close range. An old woman, on witnessing the death of the child she had been tending minutes before, and seeing the owner had run out of ammunition, handed him a bullet she’d had in the bag lying beside her. He loaded his rifle and shot her dead.
At Ruby Plains near Halls Creek the owner and manager came across a group of Aboriginal men killing a bullock. He decapitated them and placed their heads in a hollow log. Their remains were later discovered beneath the encircling buzzards. Near Halls Creek their food was laced with strychnine. After WWII children of white fathers were removed from their Aboriginal mothers and chains were used to retain control of Aboriginal prisoners.
Though these and other stories filled the canvasses that we showed in Turkey Creek exhibitions throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, there was no trace of malice in the artist’s work or her demeanour. Queenie, Rover, Jack, Henry and Freddie were always delighted to see us and generous in their welcoming presence during our many visits to the region.
Queenie McKenzie
High Country on Texas Downs, 1998
natural pigments on canvas
80 x 100 cm
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Warringari Aboriginal Arts Cat No. AP1884
Jacquie McPhee Collection -
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Queenie McKenzie
Rainbow Snake over Texas Downs, 1996
natural pigments on canvas
72 x 99 cm
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Fireworks Gallery Cat No. FW3680
Cooee Gallery
Private Collection, QLD
Private Collection, NSW
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The decade before we first visited the Argyle diamond mine was established nearby. It brought plumbers, builders, electricians, and all manner of other trades on short term contract to Turkey Creek and they supplied tank and bore water, small one-room houses with running water, and buildings for police and administration. Though housing was still limited, and the building materials were cheap, the township had begun to take on a more permanent and established feel.
Queenie loved to talk about the small one-room school she helped to establish. She had worked in the stock camps most of her life (and famously sewed up Rover’s head with a darning needle after he fell off his horse), and by then taught two-way culture to the next generation of Gidja. The community store had ended the need to make the long drive to Kununurra or Halls Creek for supplies, and a small satellite community was established at Frog Hollow, 20 Kms to the south where Jack Britten and Hector Jandanay lived.
Hector Chundaloo Jandany
Larrjibarrny - Horse Creek, 2003
natural ochre and pigments on canvas
90 x 120 cm
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Jacquie McPhee Collection
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Hector Chundaloo Jandany
Diawun, 1997
natural ochre and pigments on canvas
90 x 120 cm
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Warmun Traditional Artists
Kimberley Art Cat No. HC0038/97
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In the shade of the Boab trees here on Texas Downs cattle station, the artist and his countrymen traditionally make wax from spinifex grass for attaching spearheads to bamboo poles which grow abundantly nearby.
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The township still didn’t become familiarly known as Warmun, until Rover Thomas named it so in the late 1970s following the destruction of Darwin, the Northern Capital, by Cyclone Tracy in 1973. Rover developed his Krill Krill ceremony during the following ten years and by the mid 1980s, the decreasing conflict made the population of Turkey Creek feel more stable, comfortable, and settled. It was in that context that art production began to flourish, well before any art centre was established.
Who could possibly have imagined that a cyclone more than 1000 kms to the north, would give birth to the vibrant and enduring East Kimberley art movement that has developed since that time.
- Descriptions by Adrian Newstead
Shirley Purdie
Sandfrog Deaming, 2000
natural earth pigments on canvas
100 x 140 cm
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Warmun Art Centre Cat No. WAC431-00
Fireworks Gallery Cat No. FW5082
Private Collection, Berlin, Germany
Private Collection, Sydney
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Winnaba Springs on Mable Downs cattle station near Warnum (also known as Turkey Creek) is the country where Shirley tells of the Sand Frog Dreaming. It is where all sand frogs are born and where they go to die. This Dreamtime story was passed on to the artist by the late Queenie McKenzie.
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Tommy Carol
Wungkul, 2000
natural ochre and pigments on canvas
100 x 140 cm
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Warmun Art Centre Cat No. WAC655-00
Fireworks Gallery Cat Np. FW5097
Private Collection, QLD
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