Lily Karadada Paintings
Lily Karadada (Karedada) - Senior artist from Kalumburu - Ochre paintings of Wandjina Rain Spirit.
Kalumburu artist Lily Karadada (Karedada) has been a prolific painter of the Wandjina images from her ancestral country around the Prince Regent River area in the north west corner of the Kimberley. Still painting occasionally well into her 80s, Lily Karadada has become closely associated with the Wandjina painting tradition of Kalumburu. The area where Lily Karadada was born, around the Mitchell Plateau, is rich with the ancient rock art sites depicting Wandjina and the more ancient Gwion Gwion totemic figures.
The Wandjina spirit embodies the Creation story and is the Rain spirit for the Kimberley region. His great powers bring the seasonal cyclonic rains that renew the land and ensure the regeneration of the wildlife. Lily Karadada paints the Wandjina figure as a compact and squat image, less elongated that many other representations. Lily Karadada regularly includes other totemic animals associated with her country, into her paintings.
Lily Karadada has painted using the traditional ochre pigments on a range of materials – on bark and on canvas, on wooden artefacts and traditional bark buckets and water carriers. Lily Karadada has been a significant representative of her culture and her legacy is carried on by other members of her family group. Aboriginal art status – Iconic artist.
Selected Exhibitions
1981 Die kunst der Australischen Ureinwohner lebt, Museum fur Volkerkunde,
Leipzig, Staatliches Museum fur Volkerkunde, Dresden GERMANY
1988 Karnta, Touring South-East Asia
1990 Balance 1990 Brisbane QLD
1991 Aboriginal Women’s Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW
1992 Broome Fringe Festival WA
1993 Images of Power, National Gallery of Victoria VIC
1994 Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria VIC
2007 Ochre on Board, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA