JAN BILLYCAN

Jan Billycan (aka Djan Nanundie)'s work depicts the country of her birthplace, Kirriwirri and other sites in Ilyarra country. This is a land of spreading mud flats, gleaming salt lakes and a life-giving network of freshwater springs with their source deep underground. It was the home of the Yulparija people, deep in the Great Sandy Desert, before drought and mining caused the environmental catastrophe that drove them to the coastal refuge of Bidyadanga south of Broome. That was a time of grief and exile that lay dormant in the memories of the survivors. The stirrings of an art movement had reawakened these memories, breathing new life into an ancient land and its story. Emily Rohr of Broome’s Short Street Gallery brought art materials to the aged care home after being alerted to the elderly residents' desire (or ‘need’ as Daniel Walbidi suggested to her) to paint. The profusion of colour and untutored vitality that erupted took the eventual results to southern cities before the year was out. Sell-out group and solo shows followed, with Judith Ryan featuring them at the NGV in the exhibition 'Colour Power' (2004).

Among them, the distinctive works of Jan Billycan emerged as the expressions of a unique and startling talent. In 2011 she won the West Australian Indigenous Art Award at AGWA in Perth. Jan was a respected Marpan, or medicine woman, and as such, had the ability of x-ray vision. This capacity fed into her cell-like compositions that jangle and vibrate, similar to, as Emily Rohr says, a musical composition. It was a different manner of perception, and when applied to the geography of place and memory, carried with it the emotion of lived experience. Jan’s discordant greens, oranges, greys and purples had generated much discussion. The desert and the coast became the site of a disrupted continuity, but the desert iconography remained unmistakable.

There is Jila (living water) in this country, including Karrparti, Kawarr, Jurntiwa, and Wirrguj. Other places include Dodo, Kartal, Kiriwirri and Yukarri. When Jan was young, she walked all around these places with her parents. Jan explained, "In living water there is a quiet snake. Sometimes he rises up, but we sing him down sometimes, he can travel and bring rain. Ilyarra is my country Ilyarra, where I grew up. Lots of tali (sand dunes) and jila in this country. This big dog country." Her grainy textures instilled her works with the weight or gravitas of ‘an imaginary repossession’ (Nicholas Rothwell). Jan mixed her colours on the canvas, tracing over networks of sketched underpainting. She built her layers toward a colour and density that pushed all our boundaries, psychological as well as physical.

Jan’s close working proximity to the other painters of the Yulparija group meant that singing and discussion were ever-present as they brought back to their lives, lost relatives, precious ancestors and beloved sacred sites. These artists re-drew the perimeters of Western Desert art, though their links were still apparent. The scarcity of water that drove the flight from their homeland reverberates in their paintings with an insistent call. It remains one of the most remote and rugged regions of the world and the homeland of a diverse and dynamic Indigenous culture. Such precious memories are held in these works for future generations of Yulparija and for all of us to contemplate.

Profile author: Sophie Baka

Collections:

Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands.

Canning Stock Route Project Collection, National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

Dr Ian Bernhardt Collection

Dr Ian Constable Collection

Harvey Wagner Collection, USA

Laverty Collection

Myer Collection

National Gallery of Australia

National Gallery of Victoria

Newcastle Regional Art Gallery

Sam Barry Collection

William Mora Collection

Individual Exhibitions:

2009 - Jan Billycan Solo, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne.

2008 - Kirriwirri, Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA.

2007 - Jan Billycan, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne; Kirriwirri, Short St Gallery at Mary Place, Sydney.

Group Exhibitions:

2013 - 'The Bright The Bold and The Beautiful', Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW

2011 - Western Australian Indigenous Art Award – finalists, featuring Jan Billycan, Michael Cook, Timothy Cook, Angkaliya Curtis, Gunybi Ganambarr, Angelina George, Gary Lee, Danie Mellor, Patrick Mung Mung, Trevor Nickolls, Lena Nyadbi, Tiger Palpatja, Kuruwarriyingathi Bijarrb Paula Paul, Reko Gwaybilla Rennie, Nyilyari Tjapangati, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth. 2011 - Summer Haze, JGM Galleries, London, UK 2011 - Pearls, Paint and Ilma, Aratong Galleries, Australian High Commission, Singapore 2011 - Yulparija 2011, Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney, NSW 2011 - Green, Outstation Gallery, Darwin, NT 2011 - Bidyadanga Recent Paintings, Chapman Gallery, Canberra ACT

2010 - Hedland Art Awards, Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery, WA

2010 - 27th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin, NT

2010 - Yiwarra Kuju, Canning Stock Route exhibition, National Museum of Australia, Canberra ACT

2010 - Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Short St Gallery & William Mora Galleries present the Yulparija artists

2010 - White, Short St Gallery, Broome WA

2009 - Short on Size, Short St Gallery, Broome ,WA

2009 - Shalom Gamarada Aboringinal Art Exhibtion, University of NSW, Sydney

2009 - From Desert to Saltwater Country, Redot Gallery, Singapore

2008 - Olympic IOC Expo Centre, Canning Stock Route Project, Beijing, China

2008 - From the Desert to Saltwater, Booker, -Lowe Gallery, Houston, Texas

2008 - Bidyadanga Artists 2008, AP Bond Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA

2008 - Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty collection, Newcastle Regional Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.

2007 - National Indigenous Art Triennial 07, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

2007 - 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.

2006 - Northern Journey, The Priory at Bingie, Bingie, NSW

2006 - Bidyadanga Painters - Jan Billycan & Weaver Jack, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne.

2005 - 22nd Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; The return of our land, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT; Mummy and daughter, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne; Bidyadanga 2005, Short St . Gallery, Broome WA

2004 - Divas of the Desert, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs; Desert to Saltwater, Short Street. Gallery, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney; Desert Ocean, Short Street Gallery, Kidogo Gallery, Fremantle, WA; Bidyadanga Artists, William Mora Gallery, Melbourne; Bidyadanga Artists, Raft Art Space, Darwin; Bidyadanga Art, Art House Gallery, Sydney.

2003 - Manjyiljara, Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA.

Awards:

2011 - WA winner of Western Australian Indigenous Art Award, AGWA, Perth.

2010 - Most Outstanding Work, Hedland Art Awards

References

The Age Newspaper, Yulparija show their colours, April 19 2004.

The Australian Newspaper, West Coast's Late Bloomers, April 2004.

The Australian Financial Review Magazine, Art Direction, June 2004.

Painting Country - A West to East Journey, World Expo Aichi, Catalogue. July 2005.

The Australian, Look Whose Been Framed Now, 17 March, 2006.