LILY KARADADA - WANDJINA - RAIN SPIRITS
LILY KARADADA
WANDJINA - RAIN SPIRITS, 2001
160 x 120 cm
Natural Earth Pigments on Canvas
REGION
Kimberley, WA
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Berlin, Germany
Cooee Art Leven, NSW
STORY
Lily Karadada is the last of the great Wandjina painters from Kalumburu, on the north-western tip of Western Australia. She and her husband Jack Karadada participated in the first exhibition of Wandjina images in Perth during the late 1970s.
Painted with earth pigments and other natural materials from the bush, her Wandjina figures generally have distinctive pointy shoulders and often emerge from a veil of rain-like dots which represent the blood and water mix of man and animal. They are accompanied by animal spirits, beautifully captured in uncluttered character. Lily’s totems are the turkey, possum, and white cockatoo. She belongs to the Jirrengar owlet moiety and the Wandjina holds a special affinity with the owl.
It is said that the Wandjina spirit figure is the embodiment of the rain spirit and ancestor of the Woonambal, Ngarinyin, and Worrora peoples of the North West Kimberley. They are unique to the cave walls in the plateau areas along the North Kimberley coast, where they appear in from a frontal aspect in red and white ochre, with no mouths, large black eyes, and a slit or beak-like nose.
EXHIBITED
Inspired: Collectors Edition, April 2023, Cooee Art | Redfern
ARTIST PROFILE
