WAIGAN DJANGHARA, Untitled (Wandjina), 1990

WAIGAN DJANGHARA Wunambal language, c.1929 - 1996 Untitled (Wandjina), 1990 ochre on bark 50 x 25.5 cm bears inscription verso in chalk : P5264-IHE (partially obscured); adhered verso: Aboriginal Arts Australia label attributing the artwork to Waigan Koolari, dated 30.05.90 and Sotheby's sticker 129 PROVENANCE Painted at Kalumburu, Western Australia Aboriginal Arts Australia, Western Australia, Cat No. P5264-IHE (partially obscured) Private Collection, New South Wales Sotheby's, Aboriginal, African & Oceanic Art, Sydney, 9 November 1998, Lot 129 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 by Waigan Djanghara, who worked alongside his wife Ignatia at Kalumburu in the Kimberley. Born around 1929, he lived adjacent to the Benedictine mission established there in 1907, in a community where, as at Mowanjum before it, Woonambal law and belief had long been pressed aside by local authorities in favour of Christian instruction. For Waigan, the Wandjina were sacred: ancestral spirit beings said to have laid themselves down in caves and become the paintings that remain on the rock walls to this day. His barks are typically frontal and symmetrical, their careful balance lending each figure a quiet, ceremonial authority, a renewal of the ancestor's presence and power at the Dreaming sites from which it draws its strength.

Estimate:£1,051.28

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