Lot 58: MICKEY BUNGKUNI CIRCA 1900-1978

WANJINA C.1965

MEASUREMENTS

74 by 38 cm (irregular)

Natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Sydney Cf. For related examples see Berndt, R. M. and C. H. Berndt with J. Stanton, Aboriginal Australian Art, A Visual Perspective, Methuen, Australia, 1982; Stanton, J., Painting the Country, Contemporary Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley Region, Western Australia, The University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 1989 Mickey Bungkuni was born into the Lantarr Clan whose Elalamerri estate lay across the Hunter River (Mariawala) basin to the north of Prince Frederick Harbour. Bungkuni was the senior Wunambal lawman resident at Mowanjum in the 1960s, a position he retained until his death in 1978 As with many pre-1970s Wanjina paintings from the Kimberley this painting is on an irregularly trimmed sheet of bark. Rather than detracting from the work, the roughly trimmed bark sheets reflect the niches and surfaces of the rock shelters and caves, that carry the important Wanjina figures in many north and central Kimberley clan estates. Wanjina paintings found in caves and shelters usually present a weathered appearance. Originally Clan paintings were meant to be re-painted annually, but, along with other post-contact impacts, many have not been retouched for several generations. Bark paintings prior to 1975 were usually done in ochres mixed only with water and directly applied to unprepared surfaces. The careful stripping, flattening of bark using heat and preparing the surfaces by painting with fixatives, or mixing ochres with natural fixatives as occurred in Arnhem Land, was unknown in the Kimberley. Consequently many bark paintings tend to show a more textured surface often with some flaking of pigment - features that, along with their irregular shape enhance the sense of affinity with their cave art origins The upswept rays that crown the head of this Wanjina, common to Wanjina paintings done by both Bungkuni or his 'son' Watty Karruwara are identified by anthropologist John McCaffrey as 'bundles of hair' arranged in a complex hairdo - they 'do not represent lightning'. These in turn grow from a broader band of red ochre 'lightning' that flows from the head to outline the entire body. The black oval of the sternum (biran-biran) rests on the chest and a hairbelt (ngunuru or wanala) separates the lower limbs from the abdomen. Kim Akerman has recorded that the stippled infill represented rain (kulingi) streaming from the solitary storm clouds that march across the Kimberley in the early wet season Sotheby's wish to thank Kim Akerman for this catalogue entry