Sung Into Being

Les Mirrikkuriya

Les Mirrikkuriya was a talented songman and master

dancer in the Rembarrnga ceremonial performance style of

bongalinybongaliny, but in his later years, he turned his creative

focus to painting. In complex works notable for their elegance

and fine detail, he revelled in using a bold range of natural

pigments to depict important clan subjects. Loosely-drawn

spirit figures and creator ancestors float on fine linear networks,

and include the namorrortu (malevolent spirit), kunmadj (woven

conical bags), banaka (digging sticks), miparr (eagle), balangu

(shark) — and the sacred sites they created, in particular the

freshwater sources at Ganajangga, guarded and protected by

the Rainbow Serpent.

Mirrikkuriya often depicted gungalawurberr, a fence-like

structure important in the spiritual and secular life of the

Rembarrnga people. Made from sturdy saplings and grass held

together with strong vines, the structures straddle small creeks

and trap a plentiful supply of fish (an important food source), as

the waters flow towards the sea during the declining wet season.

Les Mirrikkuriya

Rembarrnga people / Australia NT c.1932–95

Ganajannga

1988

Natural pigments and synthetic polymer on cotton duck / 186 x 120cm /

Jack Kalakala

Rembarrnga man Jack Kalakala met Western Desert painters

at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 1985.

Originally a painter in the southern Arnhem Land style, after

this meeting, Kalakala began incorporating elements of dotting

and concentric circles of the Western Desert tradition into his

paintings, exemplifying the continual process of Aboriginal

cultural regeneration. Kalakala painted the creative beings that

traversed the earth — naming sites, bringing language and laws,

and depositing their spiritual essence in sacred waters, including

kunmadj (conical baskets), bamagorra (conical mats) and milkinditj

(digging sticks). In this painting, Kalakala reduces his imagery to the

most vital funerary elements — the central ground sculpture where

ritual dances are performed, and the ‘waterholes’ where those

associated with the deceased are cleansed at the finale.

After years of astute community and cultural leadership, Kalakala

retired to concentrate on his ceremonial duties, but, sadly, died soon

after. His own funeral attracted choirs of singers from clan groups

near and far, who sang through the night until his spirit answered

their call.

Jack Kalakala

Rembarrnga people / Australia NT c.1925–87

Funeral ceremony with dancers

1987

Natural pigments on stringybark / 153.5 x 73cm /