Underground Soakage Dry Water Holes, 2009

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

51 x 152 cm

$3,500

Provenance: Artist Directly Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW
Artwork story: The white lines in this work represent the flowing water at Warntaparri where Warlpiri people dance for rain.They paint their bodies with white ochre and sit singing the song of the hailstones. Rain floods the rives and makes billabongs, lagoons, streams and soakages. As each soakage dries up the Warlpiri move on to another. In the dry they dig a hole and cover it with leaves. By the next morning the water is clear enough to drink.Janet Long is an innovative painter and linguist. In this work she has superimposed her water (Ngapa) Dreaming over the colours of the Aboriginal land flag.

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b. 1960

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

51 x 152 cm

$3,500

Provenance: Artist Directly Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, NSW
Artwork story: The white lines in this work represent the flowing water at Warntaparri where Warlpiri people dance for rain.They paint their bodies with white ochre and sit singing the song of the hailstones. Rain floods the rives and makes billabongs, lagoons, streams and soakages. As each soakage dries up the Warlpiri move on to another. In the dry they dig a hole and cover it with leaves. By the next morning the water is clear enough to drink.Janet Long is an innovative painter and linguist. In this work she has superimposed her water (Ngapa) Dreaming over the colours of the Aboriginal land flag.