Description:

Joe Djimbungu
(1924 - c.1990)
Wagilag Creation Story,
natural earth pigment on stringy bark
In this commanding bark painting, Joe Djimbungu visualises one of Arnhem Land's most significant narratives: the epic of the Wagilag Sisters. Central to the ceremonial life of the Dhuwa moiety, the story recounts the journey of two sisters and their children across Country, their transgression of ancestral law, and their fateful encounter with the python. The work teems with symbolic detail: semicircles mark sacred waterholes, geometric panels evoke shelters and ceremonial grounds, and the rhythmic infill of dots and cross-hatching conveys the energy of seasonal rains and lightning.

Djimbungu's rendering exemplifies the way early bark paintings transmit ancestral law through both image and story. The composition's dense layering of motifs produces a visual rhythm that is both instructive and arresting, collapsing cosmological time into an aesthetic present.

Comparable examples of bark paintings depicting the Wagilag Sisters' story can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

  • Provenance: Framed Darwin, Anne Phelan (Director), Cat No. 3445EAB
  • Dimensions: 123 x 66 cm
  • Medium: natural earth pigment on stringy bark
  • Condition: Buyers Please Note


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October 31, 2025 9:00 AM AEDT
Stanmore, Australia

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