Stockroom391 of 546
Click to enlarge1946 – 2010
- Region
- Arnhem Land
- Community
- Ngalyindi
- Language group
- Ganalbiŋu (Ganalbingu, Ganhalpuyngu)
Turtles, c.1995
natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark
103 x 49 cm
$4,500
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- Provenance
- The Collection of Milton and Alma Roxanas Bonhams, May 2014, Lot 65
- Artwork story
- The long-necked tortoise, Banda, is an ancestral being of Bulun Bulun's clan country. In the artist's own account, Banda travelled to the waterhole country known as Djirringi, breaking through the dry land with his head to reach the billabong, and in doing so created the channels of fresh water that run through Ganalbingu lands. In barks of this subject the crosshatched ground carries this story, representing the dry country of the clan estates threaded with the freshwater channels Banda made. The tortoises move through country that also holds the paperbark trees, Djulgur, which flower in Midawarr, the late dry season around August, when the billabongs draw the freshwater creatures together.