Nyakul Dawson-Celebrated artist, Aboriginal elder.
Mar 29, 2015 5:29:51 GMT
nostranger, diane9247, and 3 more like this
Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2015 5:29:51 GMT
The artist died as he had lived, on the red-brown sand and
beneath a big sky. From his birth on the Wati Ngintaka
dreaming track - the route taken between Aboriginal sites by
an ancestral being - he had been taught the quest for
nourishment and shelter.
At his death around the age of 70,
stranded by flat tyres on his well-worn Toyota Land Cruiser,
in high summer, and without either water or medication,
Nyakul Dawson had exhausted those survival skills. His
extraordinary life journey ended by the dingo fence on
Western Australia's Nullarbor Plain.
From a semi-nomadic early existence, Dawson had become a
traditional healer, a miner, a guide to prospectors and
geologists, a painter of international recognition, and a
cultural ambassador - representing Australia at the opening
of the indigenous museum, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
Dawson's art, which he had begun when well into his 60s,
offers a passionate ethnographic display of ancient beliefs.
It reproduces what the anthropologist Lynne Hume has called
"a founding drama", an unfettered creative period imposing
shape on the land and its inhabitants.
Image circa 1970, just jumped of the back of a Land cruiser, picture by me.
Sitting cross-legged outside his shelter in the Irrunytju
settlement, 12kms south west of the Northern Territory and
Western and South Australia tri-border, and painting in
acrylic on canvas, he would create images that embodied
geography, culture, and soul. Those formidable canvases can
withstand sparks from the fire and dust from the swirling
column of air known as the willy-willy. And they also carry
healthy price tags, not that the artist noticeably enjoyed
the proceeds. As is the custom, he shared such rewards among
his family and among his people.
Nyakul's first wife, Alkawari Dawson, became a painter of
similar repute; there are children of their union. His
second wife, Anmanari Brown was also an artist; she survives
him, and her several children had become his.
His lack of material possessions - and, until an Australian
government agency intervened, a passport - created a
challenge when the time arrived for Jacques Chirac to leave
his presidential imprint on Paris. The president's legacy,
the Musée du Quai Branly, houses memorabilia of "forgotten
civilisations"; Aboriginal art, accordingly, was given
prominence.
But Dawson, as a member of the Australian delegation for
last June's opening ceremony, was not accustomed to
footwear. From his nomadic childhood, he had gone barefoot;
over prickles, shards of rock, and hot sand. The manager of
his arts centre bought him a pair of black shoes and a pair
of sandals, woven in the Asian fashion. With a light grey
suit, a ribbed sweater, and the red headband of an initiated
man, he was equipped for Europe.
The Qantas flight was easy; as a spiritual leader, he
explained, he was accustomed to looking down from above.
Imprisoning his feet was another matter, however; Dawson
took to the streets of Paris clutching the sandals behind
his back. The shoes were abandoned, unworn, at the hotel.
Dawson, whose English remained rudimentary, greeted the
French with "Bonjour" and "Ça va?", and "Je suis
artiste."
He enjoyed French food, such as croissants and steak and
chips. He also carved a shield, bearing ceremonial
inscriptions, which he presented to the director of the
museum, Stéphane Martin.
Paris recognised his dignity and his magnetism. Young black
men in particular would come up and shake his hand,
sometimes running through traffic to do so.
That sense of self had its origins in his youth, when he was
schooled by his grandfather as a ngangkari, a healer who
uses sharpened stone and slivers of bone to rid the
bloodstream of impurities. This, though, was to be a way of
life interrupted first by firing of missiles by the British
from the Woomera rocket range and next, also in South
Australia, by Britain's Maralinga atomic tests which took
place in 1956-57. During this time, Nyakul's homelands were
cleared by patrol officers, with temporary removal to
missions.
It was at one of these that Nyakul was given the name
Dawson. He was endowed, too, with perpetual memory of the
"whitefella" assault on his country, through the
unforgettably foul smell that blew across the spinifex
plains and the sandhills from the nuclear tests'
above-ground element.
Image taken just weeks before his death by No_Stranger, after reuniting him by phone to My Dad
The air is desert clean again now as Nyakul's Pitjanjatjara
people in their hundreds gather for a "sorry camp" - a place
of grieving - near the tri-border. In their night sky, they
have a fine view of McNaught's Comet, and its million-mile
tail. The dreaming endures without boundary.
R.I.P· Nyakul Dawson, painter, born c 1935; found dead January 12, 2007. Missed very much by me and my family, Nyakul was like a second Dad to me during my time in the outback.
beneath a big sky. From his birth on the Wati Ngintaka
dreaming track - the route taken between Aboriginal sites by
an ancestral being - he had been taught the quest for
nourishment and shelter.
At his death around the age of 70,
stranded by flat tyres on his well-worn Toyota Land Cruiser,
in high summer, and without either water or medication,
Nyakul Dawson had exhausted those survival skills. His
extraordinary life journey ended by the dingo fence on
Western Australia's Nullarbor Plain.
From a semi-nomadic early existence, Dawson had become a
traditional healer, a miner, a guide to prospectors and
geologists, a painter of international recognition, and a
cultural ambassador - representing Australia at the opening
of the indigenous museum, the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
Dawson's art, which he had begun when well into his 60s,
offers a passionate ethnographic display of ancient beliefs.
It reproduces what the anthropologist Lynne Hume has called
"a founding drama", an unfettered creative period imposing
shape on the land and its inhabitants.
Image circa 1970, just jumped of the back of a Land cruiser, picture by me.
Sitting cross-legged outside his shelter in the Irrunytju
settlement, 12kms south west of the Northern Territory and
Western and South Australia tri-border, and painting in
acrylic on canvas, he would create images that embodied
geography, culture, and soul. Those formidable canvases can
withstand sparks from the fire and dust from the swirling
column of air known as the willy-willy. And they also carry
healthy price tags, not that the artist noticeably enjoyed
the proceeds. As is the custom, he shared such rewards among
his family and among his people.
Nyakul's first wife, Alkawari Dawson, became a painter of
similar repute; there are children of their union. His
second wife, Anmanari Brown was also an artist; she survives
him, and her several children had become his.
His lack of material possessions - and, until an Australian
government agency intervened, a passport - created a
challenge when the time arrived for Jacques Chirac to leave
his presidential imprint on Paris. The president's legacy,
the Musée du Quai Branly, houses memorabilia of "forgotten
civilisations"; Aboriginal art, accordingly, was given
prominence.
But Dawson, as a member of the Australian delegation for
last June's opening ceremony, was not accustomed to
footwear. From his nomadic childhood, he had gone barefoot;
over prickles, shards of rock, and hot sand. The manager of
his arts centre bought him a pair of black shoes and a pair
of sandals, woven in the Asian fashion. With a light grey
suit, a ribbed sweater, and the red headband of an initiated
man, he was equipped for Europe.
The Qantas flight was easy; as a spiritual leader, he
explained, he was accustomed to looking down from above.
Imprisoning his feet was another matter, however; Dawson
took to the streets of Paris clutching the sandals behind
his back. The shoes were abandoned, unworn, at the hotel.
Dawson, whose English remained rudimentary, greeted the
French with "Bonjour" and "Ça va?", and "Je suis
artiste."
He enjoyed French food, such as croissants and steak and
chips. He also carved a shield, bearing ceremonial
inscriptions, which he presented to the director of the
museum, Stéphane Martin.
Paris recognised his dignity and his magnetism. Young black
men in particular would come up and shake his hand,
sometimes running through traffic to do so.
That sense of self had its origins in his youth, when he was
schooled by his grandfather as a ngangkari, a healer who
uses sharpened stone and slivers of bone to rid the
bloodstream of impurities. This, though, was to be a way of
life interrupted first by firing of missiles by the British
from the Woomera rocket range and next, also in South
Australia, by Britain's Maralinga atomic tests which took
place in 1956-57. During this time, Nyakul's homelands were
cleared by patrol officers, with temporary removal to
missions.
It was at one of these that Nyakul was given the name
Dawson. He was endowed, too, with perpetual memory of the
"whitefella" assault on his country, through the
unforgettably foul smell that blew across the spinifex
plains and the sandhills from the nuclear tests'
above-ground element.
Image taken just weeks before his death by No_Stranger, after reuniting him by phone to My Dad
The air is desert clean again now as Nyakul's Pitjanjatjara
people in their hundreds gather for a "sorry camp" - a place
of grieving - near the tri-border. In their night sky, they
have a fine view of McNaught's Comet, and its million-mile
tail. The dreaming endures without boundary.
R.I.P· Nyakul Dawson, painter, born c 1935; found dead January 12, 2007. Missed very much by me and my family, Nyakul was like a second Dad to me during my time in the outback.
