eremiah has painted Manmakkawarri and Malalalk (baby Barramundi). Manmakkawarri (the salmon catfish, Hexanematichthys leptaspis) is a good eating fish. It is found in the freshwater rivers, creeks and waterholes of West Arnhem Land. There is a Catfish Dreaming site in Gunbalanya, a rounded rock with protrudes from the ground on the south side of the town. In the old days, people used to take a leafy branch of mandubang (ironwood, Erythrophlum chlorostachys) and hit the rock with them, calling out to the Ancestors to supply plentiful fish to them. Then they would go down to the billabong, and find lots of catfish there which they would catch with walabi (traditional triangular nets) or djalakkiradj (multi-pronged fishing spears).
Kunwinjku art is part of the oldest continuous art tradition in the world. Ancestors of today’s artists have been painting the rock walls of West Arnhem Land for tens of thousands of years. The traditional palette of white, red, yellow and black comes from the ochre that naturally occurs in the region, although contemporary artists sometimes choose to paint in acrylics as well. Kunwinjku artists famously paint using either the traditional rarrk hatching technique, or the more contemporary and complex cross hatching technique which has been adapted from ceremonial painting. These lines are painted using a manyilk, which is a piece of sedge grass shaved down until only a few fibres remain.
Artists at Injalak Art Centre have been painting on Arches 640gsm handmade watercolour paper since it was introduced as a medium by American art collecter John W. Klunge in 1990 when he commissioned a suite of paintings for the Kluge-Ruhe Collection at the University of Virginia, USA. It is archival quality and has an organic texture that mimics the natural surface of bark, making it an excellent alternative in West Arnhem Land where trees suitable for bark harvesting are much sparser than other areas of the Top End of Australia.
This painting needs to be framed. It’s also being sent direct from the artist at a remote art centre, Injalak Arts, in the top end. Please note there is only one mail plane a week that takes the artwork to Gunbalanya. The tracking information is then received a week later when the mail plane returns so often the paintings are delivered before we receive the tracking information. Please expect a slightly longer wait for this very special artwork to arrive.