Bardayal Nadjamerrek | National Museum of Australia

Mok clan, Kundedjnjenghmi language, Duwa moiety

Black and white photograph portrait of a man. - click to view larger image — Bardayal Nadjamerrek

About 1926–2009

Bardayal was taught the art of rock painting by his father, Yanjorluk, in the 1940s. He worked in the mining and pastoral industries, and was also known by the nickname ‘Lofty’ due to his great height.

In the late 1960s, Bardayal turned his hand to creating public paintings. In 1999 he won the Work on Paper Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. In 2004 he received the Order of Australia in recognition of his contribution to Australian culture through his art and rock art research. Bardayal was selected for the first National Indigenous Art Triennial, Culture Warriors, at the National Gallery of Australia in 2007. In the year after Bardayal passed away, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, honoured the artist with a major retrospective exhibition.

Paintings in the exhibition

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts the legs and body of a wallaby with two dingores and two maggots. The dingoes have been painted as pipeclay silhouettes and infilled with red ochre crosshatching and x-ray detail showing their backbones.The maggots are painted in a thin wash of yellow ochre and outlined in pipeclay. The wallaby shows faint infilling with red ochre crosshatching over a thin pipeclay wash and blocks of varying shades of red and orange ochre wash in blocks. The legs have been broken at the knee joints and partially severed. The background of the painting is brown. - click to view larger image — *Butchered Kangaroo*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts a male and female possum and s sugar glider feeding on the fruits and flowers of a tree.The figures have been painted as pipeclay silhouettes on a charcoal background and with red crosshatching.The large possum shows x-ray features of heart, lungs and backbone as well as muscle structure. The painting has a black background. - click to view larger image — *Dukula and Lambalk, Possums and Sugar Glider Feeding*

A bark painting worked in ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts a spirit figure seated on a white tree stump. The spirit figure is painted with a white background and red ochre and charcoal crosshatching. There are four white diamond shapes on the body. - click to view larger image — *Dulklorrkenlorrken*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and on wooden restrainers. It depicts two fish outlined in pipeclay with internal detail added in red and yellow ochre and charcoal. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Warlkkarra dja Karlerrh (Ox-Eye Herring and Long Tom)*

A bark painting worked with ochres on bark and with one wooden restrainer. It depicts the female rainbow serpent in white, with black sections on the lower section, fins and tail. There are three plants depicted above the serpent's back. The painting has a red background. - click to view larger image — *Ngalyod the Rainbow Serpent*

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All these bark paintings are part of the National Museum of Australia’s collection. © the artist or the artist’s estate, licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency 2013, unless otherwise specified. These images must not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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