‘Four Jilas in Jilji’ is the title of this precise, rhythmic painting by artist Mawukura Jimmy Nerrimah, a Walmajarri speaker born in the North West of the Great Sandy Desert in Australia’s West North West.
Measuring 1200 x 900 mm and accompanied by a 2006 Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency certificate, this artwork, stretched and ready to hang, is available to purchase for $11,800.00 AUD, including GST.
Southern Kimberley based Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency states the artist as saying: “This is all Jiji Country, this painting is of four jilas (waterholes), in jilji (Sandhill Country) and how people travel. Kartiya (non Aboriginal people) travel from place to place and town to town, that’s the same like us, we used to follow the jilas and go from one to the next one and hunt on the way. The waterholes are Kulkuljartu (far left), Malangan (middle), Lariga (top) and Pinyal-Pinyal (right)” …
Helen Read, aviator and Director of Palya Art & Air Art Tours adds, ‘Where people’s desert travels are often referred to by the generalised term as ‘Walkabout’, Jimmy charts, through parallel lines, the purposeful journeys made on Country where each undulation, dune and hollow is known by heart.
Delineating Country using acrylic pigment on a portable linen surface enables Nerrimah’s word to spread about the importance of his Country, intended trajectories and the marrying of land and knowledge whilst also expressing unmistakable joy.