Wainburranga (Paddy Fordham) (c. 1932-2006), Rembarrnga painter, sculptor, printmaker and dancer, lived in the bush before moving to Maranboy, where he first saw white people. While working as a stockman in the Victoria River and Murranji regions he was given the name Fordham by station owners. In the 1960s he lived at Maningrida and helped to establish the outstation at Guyun. He started painting in 1983; by 1987, he was painting the Captain Cook story of the Rembarrnga-Ngalkbon people, shown in the film Too Many Captain Cooks (1988). His historical paintings, incorporating events, themes, and iconography from both Aboriginal and European cultures, quickly won wide acclaim. Wainburranga contributed 23 lorrkon (hollow log coffins) to the Aboriginal Memorial at the National Gallery of Australia, observing ‘we are not book men we are letter-stick men’. Henceforth he made many more wood sculptures, mostly of Balangjangalan spirit figures, and in the early 1990s he began printmaking. He was included in groundbreaking international exhibitions of the 1990s and his work is held in major collections across Australia.
Purchased 2005
© Martin van der Wal
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Djon Mundine OAM brings poignant memory and context to Martin van der Wal’s 1986 portrait photographs of storied Aboriginal artists.
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