Yari country
1989
- Medium
- earth pigments and natural binder on canvas
- Measurements
- 160.0 × 200.2 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Warmun, Western Australia
- Accession Number
- O.7-1990
- Department
- First Nations Australia
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of Pacific Dunlop Limited, Fellow, 1990
© Rover Thomas/Copyright Agency, Australia
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation - Gallery location
- Level 3, NGV International
- About this work
-
In 1990 Rover Thomas and Trevor Nickolls became the first First Nations artists to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. For Thomas, this moment was the culmination of around a decade of painting practice, a mode of making that combined myriad influences from his time growing up in different communities around the Kimberley. Yari Country depicts the story of an old spirit man dying in wala (desert) Country ravaged by drought. The wala is bordered on two sides by white expanses representing yari (milky-water billabongs), which the old man drank from to excess. Realising that the water was poisonous, he retreated to light a fire, shown as a blackened rectangle that represents junpa (charcoal fire), which raged out of control. The old man, unable to escape from the force of the flames, was burnt to death. At this place, the old man’s spirit entered and became the land.