Balang Nakurulk

(John Mawurndjul AM) (1952-2024)

Mardayin at Kakodbebuldi, 1999

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Maningrida Arts & Culture, Maningrida, Northern Territory (label and documentation attached verso, cat. 21631999BP)
Annandale Galleries, Sydney (label attached verso, cat. M35)
The Colin and Liz Laverty Collection, Sydney (label attached verso, cat. 1171)
Bonhams, The Laverty Collection, Sydney, 24 March 2013, lot 98
The Sarick Collection, Canada

EXHIBITED
John Mawurndjul, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, 10 August - 4 September 1999
A Century of Collecting 1901-2001, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, 29 March - 28 April 2001

LITERATURE
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty, Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia's Remote Aboriginal Communities - the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 278 (illus.)
Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty, Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art - the collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Kleimeyer Industries, Melbourne, 2011, p. 316 (illus.)

The Maningrida Arts & Culture documentation includes the following narrative by the artist, transcribed from Kuninjku into English by Murray Garde and commentary prepared by Murray Garde and Adam Saulwick,

Nanih nga-bimbom yina nga-bimbom Kakodbebuldi nga-bimbom.
Do you see this here which I've painted, it is from Kakodbebuldi.

Nani djang namekke nani karh-di. Nakkan named Mardayin (pointing to the circle in the middle).
This is a sacred site from that place. This is [connected to] the Mardayin (ceremony).

Namekke ka-rung Mardayin Barrangkarl namekke nanih nawu.
This is something from the Mardayin ceremony which glows. This here is barrangkarl (a kind of plant which, it is said, glows blue in the water at night).

Nani Mardayin namekke named uga-bimbom namekke djokkohmeng.
This Mardayin subject which I have painted has closed over everything.

Barrhbom namekke rarrk, rarrk namekke barrhbom.
The cross-hatching has covered it over.

Mardayin namekke kanjdji ka-rung namekke.
The Mardayin phenomena is underneath glowing with power.

Kanydji ku-ronj ka-rung. Kukak ngarman namekke. Ngarre naw ngarri-bimbun ngarre ngarran namekke.
It glows under the water. At night we can see it. This thing which we paint here, we can see it when we go

Ngarrinan yiman ngokkowi kunronj ngarrnan ngarri-bomang ngarrinan ka-rung kanjdji. Kakodbebuldi Mardayin namekke mani kunronj mani ka-yo. Manekke kubokimuk la kanjdji kayo Mardayin namekke. Kulabbarl manekke maneh.

When we go to get water there at night we can see that it is glowing in the water. It is there in the water which is at Kakodbebuldi. There is a large body of water there and the Mardayin phenomena is down underneath the water. It is a billabong.

Commentary:

Kakodbebuldi is an outstation community on the Mann River about 50 km south of Maningrida. It is Mawurndjul's mother's country and is a site with a large chain of billabongs in lowlands surrounding the Mann River. In one small billabong is the Mardayin ceremony sacred site which is depicted in this painting.

The cross-hatching here represents a kind of power associated with the ceremony. Just as the ceremony conceals secret mysticism so does the rarrk 'cross-hatching' represent the concealment of the ceremonial meaning of the blue lights which glow in the water at night.

This theme of underlying layers of secret meaning being covered over by either a concrete feature of the landscape (such as plants or a hollow log) or some other opaque abstraction is a thread which runs through much of Mawurndjul's art.

This work by Mawurndjul concerns a major patrimoiety ceremony of a secret and sacred nature called Mardayin. Much of the meaning of the iconography in the painting is not in the domain of public knowledge and so it cannot be explained in detail here.

The painting refers to a site, Kakodbebuldi, which is an outstation in Dangkorlo clan estate in the Mann River region. Kakodbebuldi is a Mardayin ceremony performance site and is located on a large billabong covered in waterlilies. This place is about fifty kilometres south of Maningrida in Central North Arnhem Land. The three black encircled circles represent glowing lights of a special water plant which grows in a sacred Mardayin billabong. The two main roughly circular forms in the painting are barrngkarl the plant that to which the artist refers in the narrative above. The four smaller circular forms flanking the sides of the painting are wayuk 'water lilies' associated with aspects the Mardayin cult ceremony.