Recent paintings of the Wandjina, the spirit ancestors of the present north-west Kimberley peoples, by the great aboriginal artist, Lily Karedada (Bubbles).
"; pressRelease +="Lily Karedada was born of Woonambal parents in her father's country. Woomban-go-wangoor, around the Prince Regent River. She belongs to the Jinnengger (owlet nightjar) moiety and her specific totems are the turkey, possum and white cockatoo. Her bush name, Mindindil, means bubbles, referring to the time when her father "found" her spirit coming from the water. Spirit children are believed to have been made by the Rainbow serpent and conception occurs when one of these enters a woman.
"; pressRelease +="Lily Karedada, her brother-in-law Louis and sister-in-law Rosie say the Wanjina are rainmakers living in caves and the Gooyorn (the small figures discovered by Joseph Bradshaw) are their helpers. Louis tells the story of how young children pelted the owl and took out all his feathers. He appealed to the Wandjina for help. The owl is thrown into the sky and turns into a cloud and with the help of the ranbow beings brings the cyclone and drowns everyone. The empty eye sockets and beak like nose suggest the features of an owl emerging out of mist and storm. The head is encircled by a band of red, yellow or black to depict lightning. The Wandjina figures grew from mythology and depict the violent movement of the clouds in the Kimberley wet mixed with the real physical characteristics of the owl who occurs in many versions of the story
"; pressRelease +="In the north-west and central Kimberley, painted images abound on rock shelters and cave sites, where two spectacular ancestral beings predominate and overpower the others; the usually monumental, stolid Wandjina and the ubiquitous Rainbow Serpent with which they are associated. The symbolic meaning of these huge mouthless supernatural figures with big faces and prominent black eyes began to be uncovered in the 1920's when the fist anthropologist was shown the images at Kunmunya mission. Memories of the rigid conditions of mission rule have not been erased from the karedada family artists, though now the situation is one of aboriginal control where husbands and wives support each other. Ochres are still gathered from creek beds with charcoal used for black and gum boiled from the boorngnoor tree used as a mixer.
"; pressRelease +="Lily Karedada, now a highly acclaimed artist, is regarded as the most important visual interpreter of the Wandjina. Her work is held in all major collections in Australia and overseas.
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