BANDARR WIRRPANDA: TIMELESS

29 September - 20 October 2024
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Yinimala Gumana (left) and Bandarr Wirrpanda (right), MAGMA Galleries, September 2024
Yinimala Gumana (left) and Bandarr Wirrpanda (right), MAGMA Galleries, September 2024

The timeless land os the title of an Eleanor Dark novel from 1941. It is also the title of a Yothu Yindi song whose lyrics are;

 

I feel the spirit 
Of the great sisters 
Calling on me to sing 
This is the learning

Of the great story 
I'll tell you about this place 
From the edge of the mountains 
Fly down the valley

Down where the Snowy River flows 
Follow the water 
Down to the ocean 
Bring back the memory

This is a timeless land 
This is our land... 
Just like the wise man 
Who taught me the beauty

Of the creation times 
The point where the mountain 
Meets with the sky 
Sparks a fire within my sould

Watching Mother Nature around me 
Woman, creators, history 
Finding these people Up in the mountain 
Sharing the same old song

This is a timeless land 
This is our land...  

 

Einstein also once said; "the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

 
The discussion around traditional and contemporary art is particularly frustrating for Indigenous artists and their supporters.
 
It is used not to discuss the time at which the art was made but more to define an area within which Indigenous artists can operate according to a colonial viewpoint.
 
If materials are used which are consistent with pre contact life then the work is deemed to be old fashioned and unevolved. If the same artist illustrates the same ideas using industrial materials then this is contemporary, civilised and interesting.
 
This is regardless of when the art was made or the age of the artist making it.
 
Bandarr is young and working in metal. Yinimala is also young and painting with earth pigments. The art in this show is all newly made. The sacred themes are different because of their different identities but they are each verifiably tens of thousands of years old describing events that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age.
 
We ask that people resist the facile categorisation of one as contemporary and one as traditional. Far better to understand that they are indeed very much of the present and totally of the ancient to the extent that they are best described as timeless.

 

- Will Stubbs, Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, 2024

 

 

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