MAWALAN MARIKA | WITITJ

Painted at Yirrkala in North East Arnhem Land in 1963

Sotheby's, Fine Aboriginal and Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 17 June 1996, lot 20

Fiona Brockhoff, Melbourne

An exceptional small painting by Mawalan that illustrates the way in which Yolngu artists employ formal techniques that influence perception. The painting represents a Dhuwa moiety ancestral serpent, Wititj, associated with the coming of the rainy season. At Mirarrmina in Liyagalawumirri country the ancestral Wäwilak sisters were swallowed by such a snake. The related songs and ceremonies evoke the power of the wet-season storms – thunder and lightning, torrential rain and glistening vegetation. The background design is based on a Rirratjingu clan design associated with Wititj, consisting of parallel lines intersecting in a regular pattern. In this painting the design is disrupted by the snake moving across the surface. This disturbs the regularity of the pattern, creating a sense of unease. The human figures almost seem to be falling through space.

See W. Caruana and N. Lendon, The Painters of the Wawilak Story, Canberra, 1997, National Gallery of Australia.

Howard Morphy