Lena Nyadbi (born 1936, near Warnmarnjulugun lagoon, Western Australia) is a
contemporary Indigenous Australian art
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art (also known as contemporary Aboriginal Australian art) is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded a ...
ist from the
Warmun Community in the
Kimberley region of Western Australia. Her works include ''Dayiwul Lirlmim'', details of which were painted on the roof of the
Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The resulting installation can only be seen from the air, including the
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
and
Google Earth.
Early life
Lena Nyadbi, of the
Gija people, by her own estimate, was born circa 1936 at Warnmarnjulugun lagoon near Greenvale Station in the
East Kimberley region of Western Australia. Her father and mother died whilst she was at a young age, and she was raised by her older sister, Goody Barrett, on Lissadell Station.
From a young age, Nyadbi served as an
indentured labour
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...
er on cattle stations in the region. She learned milking of cows, cattle
mustering and how to ride horses which were not broken. Nyadbi recalls the station mistress would drag her to the kitchens and would teach her by force to carry cups of tea without spilling any.
In 1968 when the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ruled that indigenous cattle station workers would be paid the same as their non-indigenous counterparts, Nyadbi along with many Gija people were forced to relocate to the
Warmun Community. In the 1970s the Warmun Art Movement was formed, and it during this time that Nyadbi lived amongst artists such as
Hector Jandany,
Queenie McKenzie
Queenie McKenzie (Nakarra) (formerly Oakes, or Mingmarriya) (c. 1915 – 16 November 1998) was an Aboriginal Australian artist. She was born on Old Texas Station, on the western bank of the Ord River in the East Kimberley.
Early life
M ...
,
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas Joolama (1926 – 11 April 1998), known as Rover Thomas, was a Wangkajunga and Kukatja Aboriginal Australian artist.
Early life
Rover Thomas was born in 1926 near Gunawaggii, at Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, in the Grea ...
,
Jack Britten,
Paddy Jaminji and
George Mung Mung.
Artistic career
In 1998, the same year the
Warmun Art Centre
Warmun Community (also known as Turkey Creek) and Warmun are a township and locality in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, located on the Great Northern Highway, northeast of Perth, Western Australia. The closest populated town is Hal ...
opened its doors, Nyadbi began painting full-time. Nyadbi had spent many years watching and learning from the other artists in Warmun, and her mentor, Paddy Jaminji, taught her the time-honoured techniques of grinding
ochre and
charcoal, and using her hands to place the charcoal onto a canvas.
Nyadbi isn't the only artist that utilizes ochre as it's been a fundamental material of aboriginal Australian art for thousands of years to paint dreamtime stories. Due to ochres naturally limited colour profile, you'll observe similar colour schemes throughout her artwork; historically, this allowed aboriginal artists to focus on colour relationship and the manner in which they affect one another. Nyadbi creates her own paint and her style is known for its "rich, spare aesthetic",
as well as her "preference for strongly contrasting colours" and "repeated 'stanzas' of symbols" that pair with her ancestral narratives.
Nyadbi typically paints two
dreaming stories (''ngarranggarni'' in the Gija language); the ''Jimbirlam Ngarranggarni'' (Spearhead Dreaming) and ''Dayiwul Lirlmim Ngarranggarni'' (
Barramundi
The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer'') or Asian sea bass, is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Perciformes. The species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, spanning the waters of the Middle East, Sout ...
Scales Dreaming). Her ''Jimbirlam Ngarranggarni'' pieces tell the story of the country of her father to the north and east of the Warmun Community on the Doon Doon side of the
Great Northern Highway
Great Northern Highway is an Australian highway that links Western Australia's capital city Perth with its northernmost port, Wyndham. With a length of almost , it is the longest highway in Australia, with the majority included as part of the ...
, whilst her ''Dayiwul Lirlmim Ngarranggarni'' works tell the story of the land of her mother, the Dayiwul Country which is the location of the
Argyle Diamond Mine
The Argyle Diamond Mine was a diamond mine located in the East Kimberley region in the remote north of Western Australia. Argyle was at times the largest diamond producer in the world by volume (14 million carats in 2018), although the propor ...
.
Respectfully, the "vertical strokes" in Nyadbi's paintings illustrate Spearhead Dreaming, while the "semi-circular shapes" illustrate Barramundi Dreaming.
In 2002, director of the
Musée du quai Branly,
Stéphane Martin, and the museums architect
Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and '' Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has o ...
, enlisted the help of then-
French President
The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is ...
Jacques Chirac to have the
Australian government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...
and the
Australia Council for the Arts find indigenous Australian artists for a project, which would see their art being displayed on the then-unopened museum in ways reminiscent of their traditional wayson walls, windows and ceilings.
A total of eight Aboriginal artists were chosen to have their works displayed for the project; amongst them was Nyadbi.
The piece ''Jimbirlam and Kumerra'', also referred to as ''Jimbirla and Gemerre'', meaning ''Spearheads and Scarifications'', was originally a black-and-white piece, but it was decided by the museum to convert it to a grey-on-grey piece, so that it would fit in with the aesthetics of the Haussmannian buildings across from the museum. Early experiments for the templates which would eventually be placed on the museum exterior wall were rejected by Nyadbi because they lacked contrast and she believed it made her artwork look like sausages. Her initial reluctance to approve the template designs almost lead to her being ejected from the project. The resultant rendering of the piece is now found on an exterior wall of the museum and is visible from
rue de l'Université
''Ruta graveolens'', commonly known as rue, common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of ''Ruta'' grown as an ornamental plant and herb. It is native to the Balkan Peninsula. It is grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for its bluis ...
.
''Hideout''
Nyadbi's 2002 painting ''Hideout'' depicts the story of her family when they were forced to take shelter in a cave from "murderous pastoralists" who were chasing after them; this was a story that she'd hear as she grew up. Eventually her family made it out of the cave through a different opening and made their way above to a ridge where they watched the gadiya (white people) shoot into the area in front of the cave in search of them. The bottom portion of ''Hideout'' depicts the cave where her family hid, as well as a nearby site belonging to an ancestral bat, and a gathering place where Gija people would grind seeds and prepare food. ''Hideout'' is largely a contrast of black and white ochre, but is remedied by a stanza of red spearheads in the top half of her painting. Nyadbi's combination of symbols and different locations brings together the past, present, and ancestral times (Ngarrangkarni).
''Dayiwul Lirlmim''
![Lena Nyadbi in Paris](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Lena_Nyadbi_in_Paris.jpg)
During a 2011 meeting with
Harold Mitchell, Stéphane Martin presented a plan to transform part of the roof of the museum into a display of
Aboriginal art, continuing on from the previous works of indigenous artists being made part of the fabric of the museum. Mitchell, who saw the opportunity of gaining increased exposure of Aboriginal art, given the roof can be viewed from the
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Locally nicknamed "' ...
, agreed to help.
After approaches to the Australia Council for the Arts, a committee, which included
Art Gallery of New South Wales indigenous art curator
Hetti Perkins
Hetti Kemerre Perkins (born 1965) is an art curator and writer. She is the eldest daughter of Australian Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins and German Eileen Munchenberg, a granddaughter of Hetty Perkins, sister to film director Rachel Perkins ...
, put forward a recommendation for Nyadbi's work to be chosen to adorn the rooftop of the museum.
Kathy Keele, the CEO of the Australia Council for the Arts, stated that the committee chose Nyadbi as her works struck a chord with the museum, as the building is shaped like a fish and is on the banks of the
Seine.
The AU$500,000 commission, which was to be borne by the Council and Mitchell's philanthropic foundation, would see Nyadbi presenting a work entitled ''Dayiwul Lirlmim'' (Barramundi scales). The work tells the dreaming story of three women who trap a barramundi in a trap, but it escapes. The three women chase the fish across the countryside, and it jumps across a creek and lands on rocks. Scales from the fish are thereby scattered across the landscape on the current site of the
Argyle Diamond Mine
The Argyle Diamond Mine was a diamond mine located in the East Kimberley region in the remote north of Western Australia. Argyle was at times the largest diamond producer in the world by volume (14 million carats in 2018), although the propor ...
– the scales represent the
diamonds
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, bu ...
which are mined in Nyadbi traditional lands.
The painting which was done with ochre and charcoal from Nyadbi's traditional lands, was acquired by Harold Mitchell and loaned to the museum and put on long-term display.
Preparation for the transformation of the artwork from canvas onto rooftop saw the original painting being digitised. This enabled the creation of 172 stencils which measured 3 metres by 1.5 metres to be created for placement on the roof of the museum. The black canvas was then painted with white rubber as is used on traffic signs in the French capital. The digitisation of the painting also allows for easy reproduction when it becomes necessary to replace the roofing tar every fifteen years.
On 2 June 2013,
Australian Governor-General
The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.[Quentin Bryce
Dame Quentin Alice Louise Bryce, (née Strachan; born 23 December 1942) is an Australian academic who served as the 25th governor-general of Australia from 2008 to 2014. She is the first woman to have held the position, and was previously the ...](_blank)
handed over custodianship of ''Dayiwul Lirlmim'' at a ceremony at the Musée du quai Branly. On the impending unveiling of the rooftop installation, Bryce said "I look forward to millions of visitors to this beautiful city glimpsing an epically scaled and awe-inspiring wonder from the Kimberley on the bank of the Seine." The installation was inaugurated on 6 June 2013, and saw Nyadbi and other dignitaries take a trip up the Eiffel Tower to view the work. Upon seeing her work on the rooftop Nyadbi shed tears, explaining that apart from feeling a great sense of excitement and pride it made her feel sorry for her traditional lands and whilst the diamond mine had destroyed the landscape of her country, the ''dreaming'' was still alive. Lee-Ann Buckskin, the chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, shared the tears with Nyadbi and said that the ''Dayiwul Lirlmim'' installation would bring to the attention to the people who see it of what is one of the world's oldest cultures.
Mitchell said the installation of the artwork on the rooftop of the museum would allow Australia to "show off our first peoples to the world," and further stated "(w)e must grab these opportunities where we can to tell the world who and what we are."
Then-
Federal Arts Minister,
Tony Burke
Anthony Stephen Burke (born 4 November 1969) is an Australian politician serving as Leader of the House, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for the Arts since 2022. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP ...
, stated that the installation signified the importance that is placed on the culture of indigenous Australia, and also held it up as an example of using art as a form of
soft diplomacy.
Awards and recognition
In May 2014 as part of the 2014 Western Australian of the Year Awards, Nyadbi was given the ''Aboriginal Award'' for "(e)xcellence in professional and/or personal achievements and contributions to the Western Australian community, and recognition as an inspirational role model of the Aboriginal community."
Nyadbi was appointed an
Officer of the Order of Australia in the
2022 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to the visual arts as a contemporary Indigenous artist".
Solo exhibitions
* Kintolai Gallery, Adelaide – 2000
*
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2000
* Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2005
* Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2007
*
Painting my Country – Always', Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2010
* Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2012
*
Starry Night', Niagara Galleries, Melbourne – 2016
References
Further reading
*
External links
Warmun Art Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nyadbi, Lena
Living people
1936 births
Officers of the Order of Australia
20th-century Australian women artists
20th-century Australian artists
21st-century Australian women artists
21st-century Australian artists
Indigenous Australian artists
Australian women painters
People from Warmun Community