#356 Mosquito Mimi Spirits - Aboriginal Art: PADDY FORDHAM (Collectors piece) 90cm x 112cm
ARTIST: Paddy Fordham
TITLE: Mosquito Mimi Spirits
COMPLETED: Unknown
REGION; Beswick, Northern Territory
CIRCA: 1932 - 2006
MEDIUM: Acrylic on Belgium Linen
BIOGRAPHY:
Biography:-
Paddy Fordham Wainburranga’s paintings and carved Balangjarngalain spirit figures are without parallel. The loose fluidity of line and form - in two or three dimensions - defies standard conventions. The borders of his paintings on bark and canvas are often crooked, the paint rough and unfinished but an impressive, gestural power dominates each painting. The spirit carvings, unlike the more static mini-figures of the Kurdal, are fluid, waving and suggest movement. Even the artist’s hollow log coffins are marked by potent imagery and spontaneous paint quality.
Paddy Fordham Wainburranga works with a raucous vigour on a plain background, painting vital spirit figures, writhing serpents, circles and dots without concern for symmetry, precision or minute elaboration.
Although Paddy Fordham Wainburranga was taught to paint by his father, his art has branched in another direction and is not confined to the iconography of ritual and mythology. As a result of a lack of ceremonial status, the artist is not entitled to include country-defining symbolism or mark used by other Rembarrnga people. Paddy Fordham Wainburranga was displaced from his birthplace Bamdibu (south-west of Ramingining) to Beswick Station, 100 km south-east of Katherine.
The Rembarrnga language group from Central Arnhem Land has produced some highly original art practitioners over the years, however, none has matched the thematic inventiveness of Paddy Fordham Wainburranga. As a painter with a philosophical bent of mind, Wainburranga paints Ngalkbun Rembarrnga mythologies but also dedicates himself to recording the history of the region through a remarkable series of works produced since the eighties.
Wainburranga’s personal experiences which shaped his rather eclectic views on life were similar in many respects to those of other men from his generation. Born in his father’s country at Bandibu, between Malnjangarnak and Bulman, Paddy and his family followed many of the other Rembarrnga to the ration Depot at Maranboy during the wartime. It was later, after limited schooling at the nearby Government settlement Dandangle, that Wainburranga decided to become a stockman, working at various cattle stations from Mataranka to VRD, Killarney and Gorrie Station, then moving to Oenpelli, Goulburn Island and Milingimbi.
By 1962 after the introduction of citizenship rights for Aboriginals, he decided to give up being a stockman and went to the recently established settlement of Maningrida to live. Nearly twenty years later he returned to live with his Rembarrnga relations at Beswick. It was here in the early 1980s that Wainburranga began committing his stories to bark.
Mimi Spirits:
There are rock paintings of Mimi Spirits in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia that date back as far as 50,000 years ago.
In the Dreamtime Mimi Spirits were small human-like beings, with thin elongated bodies. They were so thin and light a strong wind could blow them over, so they usually spent most of their time living in the rock crevices of the Escarpments.
The Mimi Spirits tamed the animals, caring for them like pets. It is not unusual for a Mimi painting to depict them with their pet.
The Mimi’s taught the Aboriginal people laws and customs along with many practical skills like hunting, how to prepare meat, how to control fire and how to paint.
It is said that they did the first rock paintings which taught Aboriginal people their painting skills.
Without a written language, painting was the only way in which the history and religion of the tribe could be passed down, thereby ensuring that future generations would know of the deeds of these Ancestral Beings who walked the earth in the beginning of time.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS NO PHOTO OF THE ARTIST HOLDING THE PAINTING.
