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YILINBURRI - MT HOUSE 1988

MEASUREMENTS

61 by 91.5 cm

Bears partly obscured Mary Macha catalogue number ...RRR on the reverse
Natural earth pigments and natural binders on composition board

PROVENANCE
Mary Macha, Perth Private collection, Perth Cf. Thomas, R. with K. Akerman, M. Macha, W. Christensen and W. Caruana, Roads Cross: The Paintings of Rover Thomas, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1994, pp. 11 & 58, for another painting of Mt. House and p.25 for the verse in the Krill Krill which refers to 'Yilimbirri' (Yilimburri). A further two paintings depicting Mt. House are in the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia; for paintings in a similar style featuring a simple contour or a track against a monochromatic ground see 'Nardihyilli', 1987, and 'Frog Hollow country', 1987, in Thomas, R. et. al., 1994, pp.11-13, illus. and for a painting with a similar composition see 'Banana Springs', 1986, in ibid., p.16, illus.; For another painting of the same site see O'Ferrall, M, Rover Thomas - Trevor Nicholls, 1990 Venice Biennale Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1990, p. 20 Mount House is a site where in ancestral times the Native Bee Man Lulumalulu encountered two other ancestral beings, Marlu the Kangaroo and Julan the Dog. Julan is associated with Paruku (Lake Gregory) near Balgo and closer to Rover's place of birth on the Canning Stock Route. The artist painted several works about ancestral events associated with the lands of his Kukatja origins - his mother's country - thus making the link between his traditionally inherited lands and the eastern Kimberley which became his home in the diaspora of the peoples of the Great Sandy Desert and where he was to have a marked impact on traditional culture and art The site depicted in this painting is in the Kurirr Kurirr (Krill Krill) song cycle that is part of the artist's Dreaming relating to Cyclone Tracy and the destruction of the city of Darwin (see lot 95). Here, at Yillimbirri (Mount House) on the journey from Broome in the west, the spirit of the dead woman tells her devil devil companion Jimpi that they are nearing her country: Mount House is approximately half way between Broome and Warmun (Turkey Creek). Verses 7 to 10 of Rover's Kurirr Kurirr song cycle (Thomas et al, 1994, p.25) read: 'here at Yillimbirri, the Devil Devil and the old woman look at a big hill. There is a big cave there. The old woman says that they are near her country. Nearby they see Goanna Fat. Near Mount House, they approach a big swamp [jilili]. At Tablelands, she says 'this is my country now.'' Yillimbirri means 'Goanna Fat' The work has been painted on the rough side of a sheet of masonite