Paddy Bedford

Painted for Jirrawun Arts, East Kimberley, Western Australia

William Mora Galleries, Richmond

Private Collection, acquired from the above 

William Mora Galleries, Richmond, Jirrawun Artists-Painting Country (Part 2), October 19 - November 9, 2002

Dr. Georges Petitjean wrote about the painting soon after it was created in 2002.

Paddy Bedford (Gija, 'c 1922), Mud Springs - Yuwangeny, natural ochres on

Belgian linen, 150 cm x 180 cm, PB 62002.127

"The composition of the painting presents itself as initially symmetrical with two main coloured fields, one black (left) and one grey (right), divided by a dotted line with in its middle a black and red circle. A red ochre expanse, however, pervades the black area at the bottom left corner and distorts the seemingly symmetrical design. Paddy Bedford often revisits the same country in his paintings. This is the case for Mud Springs (Yuwangeny in Gija), an important Dreaming site on Bedford Downs that forms the subject of this painting. In this part of the artist's mother country, people were drowned by the rainbow snake. Women had left their coolamons with some termite larvae in them behind while they went searching for bush honey and went dancing. Termite larvae are only to be eaten by women. However, two boys stole them. Moreover, they tormented the owl Doomboony, throwing stones at him. When they finally hit him in the eye, Doomboony became so angry that he summoned Garboorroony the rainbow snake. A storm of wind and rain arose and Garboorroony swallowed the two young men. They never came out again of the waterhole. Also the women, who had run back to the site, were drowned. Many other people tried to escape the wrath of the rainbow snake by running into the bush, but they were drowned as well.

The central circle in the picture depicts the permanent waterhole in which the rainbow snake lives. This waterhole in muddy ground surrounded by palm trees is in consequence considered to be a very dangerous place. The protruding rounded red ochre mass at the bottom left corner of the composition represents a large hill nearby. Black and grey areas represent respectively black soil country and dry bull dust country. While the central circle seemingly dictates the focus and locus of the picture, the red expanse takes on equal importance as the black and grey fields loose in significance. Again the balance is as daring as it is accomplished. Yet, the dramatic developments of the story are translated onto the canvas through the relations between the different components of the composition. The red circle is a warning point, a mark of distraught, which is somehow eclipsed by the protruding red ochre shape. This apparition is suggestive of the hill whereupon the angry owl Garboorroony stood while he called up the rainbow snake. It is a spectre anticipating the disaster to come. In this the forewarning of danger represented through the circle is certainly matched by the red expanse standing for the imminent peril.

The subtlety of the thin, white dotted line with a circle in its middle that seemingly divide the black and grey parts is corrupted by a pervasive rounded bold form, an expanse of red ochre. What at first sight seems to be a symmetrical painting with two nearly equal halves, is disturbed, becomes unbalanced. The painting indeed evokes some sort of symmetrical stability, but the composition denies this rigid equilibrium; it is pushed away by the red expanse at the lower left corner of the composition. The red oval shape forces its way into the black field and distorts the entire picture and the deceiving balance established by the tenuous white line. Even the central circle becomes a distorted oval-like form rather than a perfectly rounded circle.

Through this penetration, however, the painting becomes sexually loaded. Indeed, in this painting more than one picture is to be found. Bold, almost blunt forms dance on the margins of geometry, symmetry and a-symmetry. One becomes overwhelmed with the feeling that the picture would pop back into a symmetrically balanced composition once the red sphere would pull out. Thick brushwork covers the surface of the canvas in an overall manner."

Image Credits

Paddy Bedford, photographed in 2002 at the William Mora Galleries, Melbourne