Lightning in the rock
2015
- Medium
- earth pigments on Stringybark (Eucalyptus sp.)
- Measurements
- 310.6 × 110.0 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Yirrkala, Northern Territory
- Accession Number
- 2016.37
- Department
- First Nations Australia
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, NGV Supporters of Indigenous Art, 2016
© Nonggirrnga Marawili, courtesy of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
This work represents Baratjula, the Madarrpa clan estate adjacent to Cape Shield where the Mundukul, the Lightning Snake lives deep beneath the sea. The artist shows the sacred rock set in deep water between the electric ‘curse’ that the snake spits into the sky in the form of lightning, and the spray of the sea trying to shift the immovable rock foundation of the Madarrpa people. In a radical departure, Nonggirrnga stripped away much of the crosshatching applied to the background with the marwat (human-hair brush), paring back the imagery, so it stands stark.