Wagilag Creation Story

123 x 66 cm

Est. $3,000 – $5,000

Provenance: Framed Darwin, Anne Phelan (Director), Cat No. 3445EAB Private Collection, Albany NY
Artwork story: In this commanding bark painting, Joe Djimbungu visualises one of Arnhem Land’s most significant narratives: the epic of the Wagilag Sisters. Central to the ceremonial life of the Dhuwa moiety, the story recounts the journey of two sisters and their children across Country, their transgression of ancestral law, and their fateful encounter with the python. The work teems with symbolic detail: semicircles mark sacred waterholes, geometric panels evoke shelters and ceremonial grounds, and the rhythmic infill of dots and cross-hatching conveys the energy of seasonal rains and lightning. Djimbungu’s rendering exemplifies the way early bark paintings transmit ancestral law through both image and story. The composition’s dense layering of motifs produces a visual rhythm that is both instructive and arresting, collapsing cosmological time into an aesthetic present. Comparable examples of bark paintings depicting the Wagilag Sisters’ story can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

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Sale 2 · Lot 29

1924 – c.1990

123 x 66 cm

Est. $3,000 – $5,000

Provenance: Framed Darwin, Anne Phelan (Director), Cat No. 3445EAB Private Collection, Albany NY
Artwork story: In this commanding bark painting, Joe Djimbungu visualises one of Arnhem Land’s most significant narratives: the epic of the Wagilag Sisters. Central to the ceremonial life of the Dhuwa moiety, the story recounts the journey of two sisters and their children across Country, their transgression of ancestral law, and their fateful encounter with the python. The work teems with symbolic detail: semicircles mark sacred waterholes, geometric panels evoke shelters and ceremonial grounds, and the rhythmic infill of dots and cross-hatching conveys the energy of seasonal rains and lightning. Djimbungu’s rendering exemplifies the way early bark paintings transmit ancestral law through both image and story. The composition’s dense layering of motifs produces a visual rhythm that is both instructive and arresting, collapsing cosmological time into an aesthetic present. Comparable examples of bark paintings depicting the Wagilag Sisters’ story can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.