N° d'objet1995.0255
TitreYawkyawk Spirit
Créateur Owen Yalanja
DescriptionKuninjku artist Owen Yalanja is a senior member of the Dangkorlo clan, the custodians of an important yawkyawk site. Members of the Dangkorlo clan have set up their outstation community at Barrihdjowkkeng near a billabong that is a Yirridjdja moiety sacred site for the yawkyawk spirits. Yawkyawk or young spirit girls live in this billabong and their shadows can occasionally be seen as they flee the smell of humans who approach the water. They are imagined to have been girls who transformed into mermaid- like figures with fish tails. The identity of this group is very much related to their yawkyawk dreaming for which they have spiritual and practical responsibility.
Yalanja experimented with the dot patterns his father taught him, and created V shaped marks to suggest scales of the watery beings. As Yalanja says: I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas. My father used to decorate them with dots. A long time ago, he showed me how to do this. But this style is my own, no one else does them like this. Yalanja only uses kurrajong tree for carving and carefully selects trunks which can be thin and curvilinear to give his figures a sinuous appearance.
Yalanja experimented with the dot patterns his father taught him, and created V shaped marks to suggest scales of the watery beings. As Yalanja says: I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas. My father used to decorate them with dots. A long time ago, he showed me how to do this. But this style is my own, no one else does them like this. Yalanja only uses kurrajong tree for carving and carefully selects trunks which can be thin and curvilinear to give his figures a sinuous appearance.
Date 1994
Période de création20e eeuw
Nom d'objetbeeldhouwwerken (beeldmateriaal)
Catégorie d'objetbeeldhouwwerken (beeldmateriaal)
Matérielhout, oker
Techniquebeeldhouwen, schilderen
Dimensions
- hoogte: 280.2 cm
19 cm
voetplaat lengte: 50 cm
breedte: 50 cm
Ligne de créditVerworven met steun van Donald en Jean Kahn.