Jarinyanu David Downs (c. 1925–1995), Wangkajunga/Walmajarri painter, printmaker and preacher, lived a traditional life in the Great Sandy Desert of West Australia until he was a young man. Moving to the Northern Territory in the late 1940s, he worked as a drover and miner, before relocating to Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. He converted to Baptist Christianity in the mid-1960s, and became a church elder. Shortly after this he began to make shields, boomerangs and coolamons decorated with ochre; he started to paint figuratively on paper, shields and canvas in the early 1980s. Many of his paintings include Christian imagery, and some combine his traditional stories and personal experiences with Baptist stories; his body of work expresses his philosophy that we 'gotta make 'em whole lot one family'. The exhibition Jarinyanu David Downs, Kurtal as Self, held in the artist's community of Fitzroy Crossing in 2016, was the first show of his works since his death in 1995.
This 1990 self-portrait was among the works in the 2016 exhibition. Karen Dayman's essay in the exhibition catalogue states that in this painting, Jarinyanu has depicted himself painted for a ceremony honouring Kurtal the Rainmaker and celebrating the connection between the rain and the replenishment of the land and of food sources that it creates.
Purchased 2017
© Jarinyanu David Downs/Copyright Agency, 2021
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