Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra) circa 1930-1998 KIMIYARRINY (THE WHITE MOUNTAIN AND DUNCAN HIGHWAY)

Painted at Warmun (Turkey Creek) in 1993
Waringarri Aboriginal Arts, Kununurra
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award, Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, 1993
Private collection
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Sydney, 28-29 July 2003, lot 104
Glenn Schaeffer Collection

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, 1993

The painting appears to have no conservation or restoration. There are many areas of white pigment missing from re-applied dots all of which should be visible in the reproduction; some dots remain unstable. There appears to be some damage in the black paint (scrape) in the lower left hand margin and further crazing in the black pigment int he upper right hand register.
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Cf. For a painting by the artist of the same area, see Limestone hills near Texas Downs, 1991, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, in J. Ryan and K. Akerman (eds.), Images of Power: Aboriginal art of the Kimberley, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1993, p.55, illus. In her chapter 'Bones of Country: The East Kimberley Aesthetic' (ibid. p. 44), Judith Ryan refers to another painting of the artist's conception site, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria – Gimiyarriny country, 1991, not illustrated.

Painted in the artist's typically muted but rich and visually tactile palette of earth pigments, the work is evocative of the quiet beauty of the hilly environment of Texas Downs in the eastern Kimberley. The painting combines a plan view of the Duncan Highway to map out the country with the hills drawn in profile. The spearheads made from the white stone, yalga, are intimated in a visual pun in the far right of the painting; the spearheads and the hills from which the stone is collected are one and the same.


This painting is sold with the original exhibition card that reads in part: 'This painting shows country on both sides of the highway to the east of Texas Station. It includes country called Kimiyarriny, an Echidna Dreaming place which was also a traditional source of stone specially suitable for making stone spearheads - in particular a white stone called yalga which was traded to great distances on the wirnan trade routes. Queenie herself is the re-incarnation wibilirri or the Echidna from this country. The painting also includes the limestone ridges, minyjiwoorrji, on the western side of the highway.'