Artist: Linda Syddick Napaltjarri | Title: The Day We Saw a Windmill | Year: 2007 | Medium: acrylic on canvas | Dimensions: 180 x 120 cm
PROVENANCE
Japingka Indigenous Fine Art Gallery, WA Cat No. Y-LSN 1106299
Accompanied by an original certificate of authenticity from Japingka Gallery
ARTWORK STORY
Linda was born in the Gibson Desert at Lake MacKay, in 1937. At the age of eight, she walked out of the desert with her family. The party consisted of her step father, Shorty Lungkata Tjungarrayi, her mother Wanala Nangala and two siblings.
In 1937 Linda and her mother, stepfather and family travelled from Lake Mackay in the Gibson Desert all the way to Haasts Bluff on foot. Walking behind them was the ‘skinny old man’ the Walpiri witch doctor, who the family brought along as their medical advisor, because he knew everything about everything!
They walked toward the East which meant walking up and down over the high sand hills, which ran north and south. When they got to Mount Liebig, they saw their first ‘white feller thing’. It was a windmill, built by Southern Cross Windmills . At first, the family was frightened but Shorty knew what it was because he had been working for the Army during the war. He explained to them that this whirling thing was harmless and was used for making water. So it became alright.
Later on the old witch doctor caught up with them but was so tired from walking that he fell down and went to sleep without seeing the windmill.
When he woke up, it was a different story. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and saw the noisy apparition standing before him. He began shouting ‘Mamu Mamu!! this is a devil spirit, come to kill us!”. He started throwing his spears at it and but they bounced off with no effect. He then threw some magic stones at it, but nothing happened. The ‘thing’ kept whirling its arms around, making a terrible noise. The poor old man then fell sobbing to the ground still muttering Mamu Mamu!! Shorty came to his side and told him not to worry that this was a good thing, made by white fellas to get water out of the ground, for animals and people to drink. He showed him the pool of water at the base of the windmill. After a little more talking he got the old man to drink from the pool and finally the witch doctor understood that this was a good thing.
Artist Profile
COMMUNITY/REGION
Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay)
LANGUAGE
Pintupi/Pitjantjatjarra
BIOGRAPHY
Much loved artist, Lynda Syddick, found her inspiration in the people, events and metaphysical stories that sustained her life. Born near Lake Mackay, in the Gibson Desert of W.A., she lived a semi-nomadic life until the age of eight years old. Her family walked into the Lutheran mission of Haasts Bluff, encountering white people for the first time and where Linda started school. While she was a baby her father had been speared in a traditional law killing but her mother later remarried, and the family moved to the community of Kintore. Linda was brought up by her stepfather Shorty Lungkarta, a well-respected desert artist who was instrumental in Linda’s own career.
Although Lindas’s artist uncles, Uta Uta Tjangala and Nosepeg Tjuppurrula, continued her art instruction after Shorty’s death in 1985, it was the case that during the early days of the Desert Art movement (at Papunya during early 1970’s), there was strong resistance amongst the all-male artists to allow women to paint in their own right. However, there was also a growing desire amongst the women to paint and, assisted by new government-run programs, large numbers of women were painting by the 1990’s and like the men, earning much acclaim. The women found they could support themselves and their families as well as preserve their culture and well-being through art.
Composition, line and texture all work toward a pleasing narrative quality in Linda’s work, elucidating the experiences that shaped her life. A subtle fusion of aboriginal and Christian motifs background a story played out with amiable and captivating figures, reminiscent of an ancient rock painting tradition. She paints the country around Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) where her people gathered for thousands of years on their ceremonial and seasonal journeys. She was conferred the sacred dreamtime stories of the Tingari Creation myths and the Emu Men who created the landscape and instructed humankind in the Law. In her distinctive style, she also tells stories of her first encounters with white people, winning the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2006 for The Witchdoctor and the Windmill. The story relates how the witchdoctor threw spells at the windmill to ensure the group’s safe passage past the monstrous contraption and into the European settlement.
Linda’s work has appeared in many prestigious exhibitions and forms part of the collections in the National Galleries of Australia. Her highly collectable work provides a unique insight into the last generation of fully traditional desert nomads and their first encounters with inevitable change.
© Adrian Newstead
PROVENANCE
Japingka Indigenous Fine Art Gallery, WA Cat No. Y-LSN 1106299
Accompanied by an original certificate of authenticity from Japingka Gallery
ARTWORK STORY
Linda was born in the Gibson Desert at Lake MacKay, in 1937. At the age of eight, she walked out of the desert with her family. The party consisted of her step father, Shorty Lungkata Tjungarrayi, her mother Wanala Nangala and two siblings.
In 1937 Linda and her mother, stepfather and family travelled from Lake Mackay in the Gibson Desert all the way to Haasts Bluff on foot. Walking behind them was the ‘skinny old man’ the Walpiri witch doctor, who the family brought along as their medical advisor, because he knew everything about everything!
They walked toward the East which meant walking up and down over the high sand hills, which ran north and south. When they got to Mount Liebig, they saw their first ‘white feller thing’. It was a windmill, built by Southern Cross Windmills . At first, the family was frightened but Shorty knew what it was because he had been working for the Army during the war. He explained to them that this whirling thing was harmless and was used for making water. So it became alright.
Later on the old witch doctor caught up with them but was so tired from walking that he fell down and went to sleep without seeing the windmill.
When he woke up, it was a different story. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and saw the noisy apparition standing before him. He began shouting ‘Mamu Mamu!! this is a devil spirit, come to kill us!”. He started throwing his spears at it and but they bounced off with no effect. He then threw some magic stones at it, but nothing happened. The ‘thing’ kept whirling its arms around, making a terrible noise. The poor old man then fell sobbing to the ground still muttering Mamu Mamu!! Shorty came to his side and told him not to worry that this was a good thing, made by white fellas to get water out of the ground, for animals and people to drink. He showed him the pool of water at the base of the windmill. After a little more talking he got the old man to drink from the pool and finally the witch doctor understood that this was a good thing.
Artist Profile
COMMUNITY/REGION
Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay)
LANGUAGE
Pintupi/Pitjantjatjarra
BIOGRAPHY
Much loved artist, Lynda Syddick, found her inspiration in the people, events and metaphysical stories that sustained her life. Born near Lake Mackay, in the Gibson Desert of W.A., she lived a semi-nomadic life until the age of eight years old. Her family walked into the Lutheran mission of Haasts Bluff, encountering white people for the first time and where Linda started school. While she was a baby her father had been speared in a traditional law killing but her mother later remarried, and the family moved to the community of Kintore. Linda was brought up by her stepfather Shorty Lungkarta, a well-respected desert artist who was instrumental in Linda’s own career.
Although Lindas’s artist uncles, Uta Uta Tjangala and Nosepeg Tjuppurrula, continued her art instruction after Shorty’s death in 1985, it was the case that during the early days of the Desert Art movement (at Papunya during early 1970’s), there was strong resistance amongst the all-male artists to allow women to paint in their own right. However, there was also a growing desire amongst the women to paint and, assisted by new government-run programs, large numbers of women were painting by the 1990’s and like the men, earning much acclaim. The women found they could support themselves and their families as well as preserve their culture and well-being through art.
Composition, line and texture all work toward a pleasing narrative quality in Linda’s work, elucidating the experiences that shaped her life. A subtle fusion of aboriginal and Christian motifs background a story played out with amiable and captivating figures, reminiscent of an ancient rock painting tradition. She paints the country around Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay) where her people gathered for thousands of years on their ceremonial and seasonal journeys. She was conferred the sacred dreamtime stories of the Tingari Creation myths and the Emu Men who created the landscape and instructed humankind in the Law. In her distinctive style, she also tells stories of her first encounters with white people, winning the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2006 for The Witchdoctor and the Windmill. The story relates how the witchdoctor threw spells at the windmill to ensure the group’s safe passage past the monstrous contraption and into the European settlement.
Linda’s work has appeared in many prestigious exhibitions and forms part of the collections in the National Galleries of Australia. Her highly collectable work provides a unique insight into the last generation of fully traditional desert nomads and their first encounters with inevitable change.
© Adrian Newstead