Jane Yalunga / Barramundi Dreaming (1A)

Carrying on the tradition of her famous father – Rover Thomas

Jane was born in Wyndham, East Kimberley in 1972.  She grew up on Texas Downs Station (her mother’s country) and where her father worked as a stockman for many years.  She resides at Warmun Community and works with children participating in a Community Education Project at Warmun. Jane’s late husband was also an artist and they have five children.

Jane is the daughter of one of Australia’s best known artists, Rover Thomas. She commenced painting seriously in 2006 and her content includes her mother’s family country of Ngarrgooroon (Texas Downs Station), and figurative works of birds and animals as well as superb depictions of religious figurative paintings all complete with accurate information including stories and text from the Bible. She is a well educated woman, with both artistic talent and the will to succeed.  She has in-depth knowledge of her father’s family who have passed on to Jane the Culture and the Dreamings of his Kukatja heritage. Recently Jane has painted her version of a number of her father’s designs, producing amazingly strong works with minimal imaging.

Jane uses the Traditional ochres of the Kimberley region with confidence and her works hold promise of a brilliant artistic future. She has recently participated in printmaking and etching workshops, and like her late father, Jane paints both for her art centre and as an independent artist.

Selected Exhibitions

2008

• Works by Jane Yalunga, Madigan Thomas and Marika Patrick. Palya Art at Mary Place Gallery, Sydney

• Women of Warmun: Ten years On – including Jane Yalunga, Betty Carrington, Mabel Juli, Madigan Thomas, Marika Patrick, Nancy Nodea. Gadfly Gallery, Perth

2007

• Ralph Pucci International Gallery, New York (in association with Cross Cultural Art Exchange, Darwin)

• “Dog Dreamings”, Seva Frangos Art, Subiaco, Perth, WA

• A Warmun Selection, Palya Art, Melbourne

2006 

• “Women from Texas Downs,” Gadfly Gallery, Dalkeith, Perth, WA

• “What Bird Is That?,” Alcaston Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne, VIC

• “Warmun Art Centre Presents”, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney, NSW

Based on a design by her late father (Rover Thomas), Jane has depicted the country with which she associates a Kitja Women’s story handed down from time immemorial. Daiwal (Barramundi) features strongly in Women’s Business and Sacred sites in her Traditional Country, secret places where the Kitja Women meet to discuss the Law, initiate the young women and pass their culture to the young ones. The core of the story is that the women had woven fish nets from pandanus palm leaves. They had a good catch, however one of the Barramundi escaped and flew over the country, dropping her scales to make the rich diamonds. Jane has painted a former Daiwal Women’s Ceremonial site near the Argyle Diamond Mine, which shows imaging indicative of the topography of the area, with one section attributed to the burial site of the bones of the Barramundi. The Kitja women were forced to shift this site closer to the Warmun Community after the Diamond Mine acquired this particular land.

The Tradition of the Barramundi Dreaming is far deeper than this story, which has numerous variations and embellishments. However, due to the sacred nature of the dreamings no further details are normally given.