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Lot 30

Tommy Gondorra Steele
(born 1940)
Jima Jima (Water Lily), 2007

Important Australian Art

24 August 2021, 18:00 AEST

Melbourne, Armadale

Sold for AU$6,273 inc. premium

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Tommy Gondorra Steele (born 1940)

Jima Jima (Water Lily), 2007
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
142.0 x 72.0cm (55 7/8 x 28 3/8in).

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Maningrida Arts & Culture, Northern Territory (cat. 3809-07)
Annandale Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso)
The Bill and Anne Gregory Collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Spirit in Variation, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, 7 November – 8 December 2007

This painting is accompanied by Maningrida Arts & Culture documentation (attached verso) that reads in part: 'This painting is of a water plant called Jimijima...This plant is one of Tommy Gondorra Steele's personal Dreamings. It is something like a waterlily. Jimijima is associated with Yalija, and is also associated with other sacred waterholes in the Wurdeja area. Tommy's painting of jimajima lives in wet water area at Wurdeja. They have an edible root, which is brownish and bitter when raw, but once roasted on coals it is deliciously sweet. They are only found in sacred waterholes in the Wurdeja area including Yalija, and humans and spirits live off them...'

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