IGNATIA DJANGHARA, Untitled (Wandjina), 1990

IGNATIA DJANGHARA Wunambal language, c.1930 - 2000 Untitled (Wandjina), 1990 ochre on bark 60 x 36 cm (irregular) bears inscription verso in chalk: P5502-ITT; adhered verso: Sotheby's sticker 133 PROVENANCE Painted at Kalumburu, Western Australia Aboriginal Arts Australia, Western Australia, Cat No. P5502-ITT Private Collection, New South Wales Sotheby's, Aboriginal, African & Oceanic Art, Sydney, 9 November 1998, Lot 133 D'Lan Contemporary, Victoria Private Collection, Victoria EXHIBITED D'Lan Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, 5 - 8 September 2024, Sydney, New South Wales This bark, depicting a Wandjina, was painted circa 1990 by Ignatia Djanghara, among the most accomplished custodians of this imagery to work from Kalumburu in the Kimberley. Born around 1930, she came to prominence only in her mid-fifties, painting alongside her husband Waigan in a community shaped by the Benedictine mission established there in 1907, an environment in which, as at Mowanjum before it, Woonambal law and belief had long been set against Christian instruction by local authorities. For Ignatia, the Wandjina were not subjects to be invented but ancestral beings to be kept alive: spirits said to have laid themselves down in caves and become the paintings still visible on the rock walls today. Each bark she produced stood as a renewal of that presence, a means of keeping the ancestors strong at the Dreaming sites from which their power was drawn.

Estimate:$1,758.29

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