Lily Karadada / Rainmaker Wandjina (N-2160-LK)

Artwork is accompanied by Narrangunny Art Traders Certificate of Authenticity

c. 1921–2026

Lily Mindindil Karadada was one of Australia’s most important contemporary Aboriginal artists and one of the great Wandjina painters of the north Kimberley. Over a remarkable artistic life spanning many decades, she became internationally recognised for her highly distinctive interpretations of Wandjina, while remaining deeply connected to the cultural traditions and Country from which they come.

Lily was born around 1921 in the Prince Regent River region of the north Kimberley, on her father’s Country at Woombangowangoorr. Her traditional name, Mindindil, means “bubbles” and refers to bubbles rising from a freshwater spring associated with the story of her birth.

After the death of her father, Lily travelled with her mother and family north to the Mitchell Plateau. She later married respected artist and cultural man Jack Karadada, and the couple eventually settled at Kalumburu, where they raised their large family.

Lily and Jack became leading figures in one of the Kimberley’s most significant artistic families. Their children, grandchildren and extended family have continued the artistic and cultural traditions that they helped bring to national and international attention.

The Wandjina are powerful ancestral beings associated with rain, clouds and the seasonal regeneration of Country, and are central to the cultural traditions of the Wunambal, Worrorra and Ngarinyin peoples of the north Kimberley. Their images have been painted and renewed for countless generations in rock shelters and caves throughout the region.

Lily grew up surrounded by these traditions and developed an artistic language that was unmistakably her own. Her Wandjina are immediately recognisable, often compact and powerful in form, with broad, distinctive shoulders and surrounded by delicate fields of rain-like dotting. Turtles, bush turkeys, snakes, possums, birds, rock pools and other elements of her Country frequently accompany the ancestral figures.

Water is particularly significant in Lily’s work. Rain drops and bubbling water frequently appear around her Wandjina, reflecting the wet rock surfaces, caves and shelters where Wandjina rock art is found and the close association of these ancestral beings with rain and water. These elements also connect beautifully with Lily’s traditional name, Mindindil, meaning “bubbles”. She also painted Black Wandjina associated with lightning and drew upon imagery and cultural traditions she had known since childhood.

Although best known for her paintings in natural earth pigments, Lily worked across a range of traditional and contemporary media, including bark, canvas, slate, printmaking and beautifully painted coolamons.

Even in her later years, Lily would go out and cut the bark for her coolamons herself. She did not trust the younger ones to cut it correctly. The bark was carefully selected and removed, then dried and shaped over a fire to create the traditional coolamon or baby cradle before Lily painted its surface with her distinctive Wandjina imagery. It was a process that brought together her knowledge of Country, traditional practice and artistic skill, and was characteristic of Lily’s determination to do things properly and in the way she had been taught.

Lily was also present at a pivotal moment in the wider recognition of north Kimberley art. In 1976, she was one of the artists represented in Aboriginal Art and Craft of the Kimberleys at the Aboriginal Traditional Art Gallery in Perth. Historical records held by AIATSIS describe this exhibition as the first time Wandjina bark paintings had been exhibited publicly in this way. Lily’s participation places her at the very beginning of the movement that brought this extraordinary north Kimberley artistic tradition to a wider Australian audience.

Her reputation continued to grow over the following decades. Her work was included in major exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally, including Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1993, Power of the Land: Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1994, and Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC in 2006.

In 2003, Lily was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for her contribution to art, recognising the significance of her extraordinary career.

In 2009, Lily and her niece Regina Karadada were awarded the Australian Print Workshop Collie Print Trust Printmaking Fellowship. Rather than asking the elderly artists to travel to Melbourne, Australian Print Workshop took a temporary printmaking studio to Kalumburu. Working directly onto copper plates, Lily created a major body of etchings which was subsequently exhibited in Melbourne in 2010.

Lily’s work is represented in many of Australia’s most important public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia and Queensland Art Gallery. Her work is also held in significant university, museum and private collections in Australia and internationally.

The significance of Lily’s career reaches well beyond her individual paintings. She was an important link in the continuation of one of the world’s great living artistic traditions and helped carry Wandjina imagery from the rock shelters and cultural landscapes of the north Kimberley into some of Australia’s leading galleries and museums without losing the distinctive identity of her own Country, family and artistic hand.

Lily passed away peacefully in Kununurra in mid 2026, at approximately 105 years of age.

For Artlandish, Lily was much more than an important artist. We had the great privilege of working directly with her for many years and she became a much-loved friend of the gallery. We will remember her extraordinary talent and cultural legacy, but also the person we knew: a lovely lady with tremendous warmth, humour and a wonderful infectious laugh.

Once met, never forgotten.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
• Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
• Artbank, Sydney
• Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia
• Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
• Australian Print Workshop Archive
• Christensen Collection, Museum Victoria, Melbourne
• Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands
• Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, USA
• Hank Ebes Collection, Victoria

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2011 – Lily Karedada: The Last of the Great Wandjina Painters, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2010 – Lily Karadada, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
• 2000 – Lily Karadada, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2023 – Open Borders, John Curtin Gallery, Perth
• 2018 – Keepers of the Kimberley, Coo-ee Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2016 – Cooee Art at Australian Galleries, Australian Galleries, Sydney
• 2011 – Bark Paintings 1930–2000, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2010 – Passing on Tradition: New and Old Kimberley, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2010 – Australian Print Workshop Collie Print Trust Fellowship Exhibition, Australian Print Workshop Gallery, Melbourne
• 2009 – Floating Life: Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• 2009 – Parcours des Mondes, Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2009 – Dreamtime, Musée Les Abattoirs with Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Toulouse, France
• 2007 – Back to the Board, Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney
• 2007 – Ochre on Board, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
• 2007 – Parcours des Mondes, Galerie Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2006 – Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, USA
• 2006 – Christofle invite l’Australie, Musée Bouilhet Christofle / Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Saint-Denis, France
• 2005 – Kaos, Parcours des Mondes, Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2005 – Terre de Rêves, Terre des Hommes, Musée de la Préhistoire d’Île-de-France / Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Nemours, France
• 2005 – Terre de Rêves, Terre des Hommes, Australian Embassy / Arts d’Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2005 – PALS Art Exhibition, Wardarnji Aboriginal Cultural Celebration, Fremantle
• 2004 – EXPLAINED: A Closer Look at Aboriginal Art, Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands
• 2004 – Aborigènes: les couleurs du Rêve, Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Lyon, France
• 2003 – Spirit Country, Matsunoyama, Hokkaido and Tokyo, Japan
• 2000 – Group Exhibition, Arts d’Australie, Espace Mezzo, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France
• 1999 – Group Exhibition, Australie – Art, Arts d’Australie, J.L. Amsler, Bastille, Paris, France
• 1997 – L’Art des Aborigènes d’Australie, Arts d’Australie, Galerie de Stassart, Brussels, Belgium
• 1997 – L’Art des Aborigènes d’Australie, Arts d’Australie, Espace Paul Riquet, Béziers, France
• 1994 – Power of the Land: Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• 1993 – Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• 1992 – Broome Fringe Festival, Broome
• 1991 – Aboriginal Women’s Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
• 1990 – Balance 1990: Views, Visions, Influences, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• 1988 – Karnta, touring South-East Asia
• 1981 – Die Kunst der Australischen Ureinwohner lebt, Museum für Völkerkunde, Leipzig and Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Dresden, Germany
• 1976 – Aboriginal Art and Craft of the Kimberleys, Aboriginal Traditional Art Gallery, Perth

I have painted the Wandjina as it is in the caves in my country. Those caves are very wet, with water bubbling up everywhere – that’s the name my father gave me – my bush name that Jackie calls me – Mindindil – that means bubbles. These one Rainmaker send down rain to make everything grow. Lots of cave rocks round this place. And those bush turkeys – all for good tucker and for good life.

The Wandjina spirit embodies the Creation story and is the Rain spirit for the Kimberley region. His great powers bring the seasonal cyclonic rains that renew the land and ensure the regeneration of the wildlife. Lily Karadada paints the Wandjina figure as a compact and squat image, less elongated that many other representations. Lily regularly includes other totemic animals associated with her country, into her paintings.