IGNATIA DJANGHARA, Untitled (Wandjina), 1990

IGNATIA DJANGHARA Wunambal language, c.1930 - 2000 Untitled (Wandjina), 1990 ochre on bark 42.5 x 22 cm (irregular) bears inscription verso in chalk: P5853-OTHO; adhered verso: Aboriginal Arts Australia label and Sotheby's sticker 130 PROVENANCE Painted at Kalumburu, Western Australia Aboriginal Arts Australia, Western Australia, Cat No. P5853-OTHO Private Collection, New South Wales Sotheby's, Aboriginal, African & Oceanic Art, Sydney, 9 November 1998, Lot 130 D'Lan Contemporary, Victoria Private Collection, Victoria EXHIBITED D'Lan Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, 5 - 8 September 2024, Sydney, New South Wales This bark was painted by Ignatia Djanghara, one of the great custodians of Wandjina imagery from the Kimberley. Little is recorded of her early life. Born around 1930, she was already in her mid-fifties when she rose to prominence at Kalumburu in the mid-1980s, living beside the Benedictine mission established in 1907. Here, as at Mowanjum, the site of a former Presbyterian mission, local authorities had long pressed the Woonambal people to set their tribal customs and beliefs aside in favour of Christian teaching. Against this backdrop, Ignatia and her husband Waigan held to their responsibility for the Wandjina, ancestral spirit beings said to have lain down in caves and become the paintings that remain on the rock walls today. For Ignatia, every bark she painted was understood not as invention but as reproduction, a faithful echo of the real Wandjina still present at their most sacred Dreaming sites. © IGNATIA DJANGHARA / Copyright Agency, 2026

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