Wandjina c.1976

Alec Mingelmanganu is thought to be one of the most prolific painters of Wandjina – ancestral spirits that, for Worrorra people, existed during the lalai (creation period). Wandjina emerged from the sea and sky, bringing with them rain and other elemental and creational powers, at which point they transformed themselves into (or ‘laid down’ in) the paintings that appear in the caves and rock galleries.

Wandjina are sacred to the Ngarinyin, Worrorra and Wunambal peoples of the central and northern Kimberly region of Western Australia. As the spirits’ cultural custodians, these are the only peoples permitted to represent the Wandjina’s likeness.

This painting is thought to be one of Mingelmanganu’s earliest works, depicting a single Wandjina in natural ochres on a sheet of stringy bark. Unique to bark paintings from the remote community of Kalumburu, the yalmin (stringy bark) sheet possesses an arched reinforcement, achieved by sewing kaaji (supplejack ‘strangler’ vine) into the perimeter with threads of bush-string spun from the inner bark of the young tiimbal tree (red-flowered kurrajong).