BILLY THOMAS JOONGARRA, Jalpiny, 2004

BILLY THOMAS JOONGARRA Dyaru/Wangkantjunga languages, c.1920 - 2012 Jalpiny, 2004 ochre on canvas 70 x 45 cm bears inscription verso: Red Rock Art, 0604, 70x45, Billy Thomas, KP1985 PROVENANCE Red Rock Art, Western Australia, Cat No. KP1985 Private Collection, New South Wales Bonhams, Aboriginal Art, Sydney, New South Wales, 19 November 2012, Lot A59 Dennis and Debra Scholl Collection, United States of America Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Red Rock Art Jalpiny takes its title from the banksia, whose long conical flower spikes supplied a valued source of natural sugar in Wangkajunga country, nectar drawn straight from the blossom or steeped in water as part of a seasonal round tying subsistence to law and country. Against a ground of brown and black, the flowering unfolds in white across the majority of the canvas, its dense, textured surface built from short, layered brush marks. Billy Joongarra Thomas took up painting late, joining Waringarri Arts in Kununurra in 1995 in his seventies, after decades droving cattle through the Canning Stock Route country he would go on to paint. That late start gave his work an unusual density of observation: Jalpiny reads not as a schematic botanical diagram but as a record of long attention, holding ecological knowledge, seasonal memory, and custodianship of country in a single image.

Estimate:£2,102.57

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