Lot 20
John Mawurndjul(born 1952)Kunmadj (Dillybag), 1996
25 November 2020, 18:00 AEDT
Melbourne, ArmadaleSold for AU$36,900 inc. premium
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Alex Clark
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Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
John Mawurndjul (born 1952)
Kunmadj (Dillybag), 1996
inscribed verso: 'Mawurndjul / 5625'
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
112.5 x 59.5cm (44 5/16 x 23 7/16in).
inscribed verso: 'Mawurndjul / 5625'
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
112.5 x 59.5cm (44 5/16 x 23 7/16in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Maningrida Arts & Crafts, Northern Territory (cat. 5625)
Annandale Galleries, Sydney
Private collection, France
EXHIBITED
rarrk - John Mawurndjul : journey through time in Northern Australia, 21 September 2005 – 29 January 2006, Museum Tinguely, Basel
LITERATURE
Christian Kauffmann (ed.), rarrk - John Mawurndjul : journey through time in Northern Australia, Crawford House Publishing Australia, Sydney, 2005, p. 118 (illus.), p. 228
RELATED WORK
Kunmadj – Milil Hunting bag, c.1988, in the collection of Museums Victoria, Melbourne, in John Altman et al., John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2018, pp. 100-101 (illus.)
Kunmadj refers to the finely woven collecting baskets used in Arnhem Land for a variety of foods including sugarbag (native honey). Aside from their practical use, dillybags are also of cultural significance as totemic objects associated with specific sites. One of these sites is near Milmilngkan where John Mawurndjul resides.
The circular form represents the opening of the basket, but may also reference a waterhole. In a lecture given during the National Museum of Australia exhibition Old Masters, Wally Caruana discussed the 'waterhole' motif found in bark painting in detail. Caruana notes, 'The clan waterhole, which in Arnhem Land people talk about as containing the souls of all the people who have passed away: all their ancestors, parts of the souls of the living, and the souls of all those yet to be born into the clan. It's a very powerful place in terms of providing people with their identity.
One of the interesting things here in bark painting is to see that clan waterhole depicted as a central part of the composition and in a sense that mimics the centrality of the clan waterhole in people's identity, in people's lives in their associations with the ancestors and especially with the country. It's that locus where people attain that identity from and where it's kept.'1
Francesca Cavazzini
1. Wally Caruana, 'Seeing Barks' for Old Masters: Australia's Great Bark Artists, lecture transcript, 5 March 2014, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
