Bonhams 1793 : Paddy Jaminji (circa 1912-1996) Lissadel Ceremonial Figures

PROVENANCE:
Painted circa 1985
Gifted by the artist to a nursing sister at Warmun (Turkey Creek) between 1984-1989, where it was hung in a community clinic
Superannuation Fund of William Nuttall and Annette Reeves

EXHIBITED:
Blue Chip X, The Collectors' Exhibition Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 4 March - 5 April 2008, cat. no.14.

A rare painting of the human figure by the original painter of the boards carried in Rover Thomas's Kurirr Kurirr ceremony about Cyclone Tracy in the late 1970s. Jaminji brought his depth of knowledge of Gija law and country to bear in paintings of succinct power and immediacy.

Although Jaminji's paintings are rarely large in scale, the size of this painting relates to that of the boards carried across the shoulders in Kurirr Kurirr rituals. The painting depicts two men dressed in ritual regalia complete with feathered headdresses, body paintings and boomerangs. The headpieces suggest that the ceremony depicted does not relate to the Kurirr Kurirr even though the site where the action takes place, Lissadell Station, is mentioned in that song cycle. At the Lissadell turn-off there is a big rock at a place known as Juwarri (Tjuwarri); see Rover Thomas with Kim Akerman, Mary Macha, Will Christensen and Wally Caruana, Roads Cross: The paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1994, p.26, song 23. A related painting in the Holmes à Court Collection, Lisadell Country (Tjuwarri), 1995, is illustrated in Kim Akerman, "I bin paintin' first." Paddy Jaminji trail-blazing artist of the Warmun school of Aboriginal art, Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth, 2004.

Wally Caruana