Australia, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
1960s
Eucalyptus bark, natural pigments
Height: 23 inches (58.4 cm); Width: 14 inches (35.6 cm)
Provenance: Thorpe Gallery, Sydney, Australia; old label on reverse
Bob Yanyurr (born circa 1905) was a Gunwinggu artist from the Oenpelli region of the Northern Territory, working within a bark painting tradition rooted in the same visual language used to decorate the rock escarpments of western Arnhem Land for thousands of years. This painting depicts a Mimi spirit — elongated, cross-hatched figures that inhabit the rock country and are credited in Gunwinggu belief with teaching the first people the skills of hunting and painting. The figure is rendered in natural ochres on a dark ground, the body filled with fine rarrk cross-hatching and the limbs articulated with characteristic Arnhem Land draftsmanship.
Mimi spirits occupy a significant place in the cosmology of Arnhem Land communities, understood as ancient, playful, and powerful beings whose presence is still felt in the stone country they are said to inhabit. Bark paintings of this subject from the 1960s represent a period when Oenpelli artists were producing work of sustained quality for both ceremonial context and institutional collection, and this example retains its Thorpe Gallery provenance label — a Sydney dealer active in the documentation and sale of significant Aboriginal material during that decade.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Australia, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
1960s
Eucalyptus bark, natural pigments
Height: 23 inches (58.4 cm); Width: 14 inches (35.6 cm)
Provenance: Thorpe Gallery, Sydney, Australia; old label on reverse
Bob Yanyurr (born circa 1905) was a Gunwinggu artist from the Oenpelli region of the Northern Territory, working within a bark painting tradition rooted in the same visual language used to decorate the rock escarpments of western Arnhem Land for thousands of years. This painting depicts a Mimi spirit — elongated, cross-hatched figures that inhabit the rock country and are credited in Gunwinggu belief with teaching the first people the skills of hunting and painting. The figure is rendered in natural ochres on a dark ground, the body filled with fine rarrk cross-hatching and the limbs articulated with characteristic Arnhem Land draftsmanship.
Mimi spirits occupy a significant place in the cosmology of Arnhem Land communities, understood as ancient, playful, and powerful beings whose presence is still felt in the stone country they are said to inhabit. Bark paintings of this subject from the 1960s represent a period when Oenpelli artists were producing work of sustained quality for both ceremonial context and institutional collection, and this example retains its Thorpe Gallery provenance label — a Sydney dealer active in the documentation and sale of significant Aboriginal material during that decade.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
