Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

106 107 Timothy Cook and Pedro Wonaeamirri operate at two directly opposite ends of the spectrum of the Tiwi painting tradition. Yet, their works come together, as if to observe one another — for here each mark has a meaning, prescribed in the Palaneri but constantly re-imagined by countless artists since. 1 Wonaeamirri’s linear, gridded designs can almost be read as sheet music formalising the proceedings of Tiwi ceremony, whilst Cook’s free and lyrical compositions flow like a spontaneous improvised melody. Alone, each work has great meaning and power, but together that meaning becomes amplified, with lines and dots singing together in chorus; Wonaeamirri’s paintings appear as staves starved of clefs, while Cook’s dots yearn to belong to a stave of their own. The qualities found in their art are also echoed in the personalities of the artists. Wonaeamirri has been, at different times, deeply involved in community and culture, working towards bringing back the use of kayimwagakimi or pwoja, the traditional Tiwi painting comb used to achieve so much of his linear perfection. He is also one of the few members of the younger generation fluent in ‘old’ Tiwi language, reaffirming his desire to protect and reinvigorate Tiwi tradition. Cook, on the other hand, creates his own style of work in an immediate, almost existential, way. He loses himself deep within the process of painting, fading into its background like a shooting star dissolving into the night sky. Their idiosyncratic differences are exposed by the structure and surface of the tunga, a traditional Tiwi bark basket and beautifully engineered structural form. 2 Its circular mouth, held open with a wooden bar, tapers to a pointed end, in a solid form reminiscent at times of north Queensland jawun (bicornual baskets), though its painted surface of stringybark ( Eucalyptus tetrodonta ) means that it is more often seen as essentially a bark painting folded in half and sewn together with natural fibre. Wonaeamirri’s rigid patterns immediately need to adapt to the new surface, becoming more fluid in accommodating bulges, bumps, knots, edges and endings, as if painting participants in the pukumani. 3 These designs are ceremonially derived, and although we are familiar with seeing them on paper and canvas, they scream out in a yearning for a solid, three- dimensional surface to wrap themselves around. Cook, however, seems completely unfazed by the change in surface — one can assume that he could be given a building to paint on and be completely content to engage totally in the process of an extended project. His patterns — bold and basic jilamara, pukumani and kulama-derived designs — always appear to float independently of their media or surface, like stars suspended in a charcoal sky where major elements occasionally appear as strange and powerful phenomena — a pulsar or quasar — erupting to the fore before returning the focus to a matrix of unassuming globes. 4 Together, Wonaeamirri’s and Cook’s tunga show the sharp differences in Tiwi style. But, rather than clashing, the styles today complement each other, as if in a completely mutually reliant, symbiotic relationship. In Tiwi art, it seems that opposites really do attract. Timothy Cook and Pedro Wonaeamirri: Opposites attract Bruce McLean Timothy Cook Tiwi people NT b.1958 Tunga (Bark basket) 2005 Natural pigments on stringybark with bark fibre string 74 x 85 x 47cm Acc. 2005.332 Commissioned 2005 with assistance from the Thomas Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation © Timothy Cook 2005. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney, 2009 Endnotes 1. Palaneri is the localised Tiwi language term equivalent to the dreaming, the creative period when the land was shaped and laws were made by ancestral and spirit beings. 2. Tunga is the shortened version of wongatunga. Tunga is more often encountered than the more formal, longer version. 3. The pukumani is the Tiwi mortuary ceremony where these designs are painted onto participants as well as tutini (poles) and tunga. 4. The kulama ceremony is an important harvest ceremony, associated with the kulama yam, often also referred to as the hairy or cheeky yam.