Ngalyod--the rainbow serpent is a bark painting done by Jimmy Njiminjuma of the Western Arnhem land region, circa 1985. Jimmy Njiminjuma is one of the most renowned artists from this region. According to the artist profile featured on the gallery website, For many years he lived with his father, Anchor Kulunba, at Mumeka outstation. Njiminjuma said that his father and his uncle Peter Marralwanga showed him how to paint. In the 1980s Njiminjuma took on the role of teaching his younger brother John Mawurndjul the art of bark painting.

Njiminjuma was adept at painting a number of subjects, and one of his recurring themes is the yawkyawk. These figures are understood to be a kind of female water sprite, and the Kuninjku often paint them with …show more content…
His style reveals his affiliations to country and clan. In bark paintings, the incorporation of geometric designs, intricate line patterns, and figurative, as well as naturalistic elements reveal Kuninjku beliefs in the creative actions of ancestral beings. Notice how the interior of the serpent is divided into sections, I am unsure of whether or not this is a representation of the cross hatched patterns we read about and learned about from our visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art, that would have been painted on the body in rituals and ceremonies to denote clan affiliations, but it is interesting to point out. Additionally, notice how bright and vibrant these colors are, almost to evoke the radiant presence of the supernatural powers that this being …show more content…
Then over the course of days, the bark was flattened out and smoothed making it ready for painting on. The colors used by bark painters of Arnhem land such as Njiminjuma, are a range of red, yellow, black and white ochers. A range of brushes are made from a variety of hair fibers and sticks. finer fibers are used in painting these intricate line patterns you see here. In addition to fulfilling ritual/cultural/tradition functions, these paintings have been made available for public consumption as well. If you can recall from previous readings, in particular the Luke Taylor reading, Fire in the Water, in the early 1900s the Europeans first observed this practice of painting on large sheets of flattened bark used for the walls of shelters and since, the demands of anthropologists and collectors alike for portable works of art has in some way stimulated the production of these paintings. Additionally, Aboriginal people of the Arnhem land region, as you know, used art as a means of expressing their attachments to the land; bark paintings were submitted as evidence to the Australian government in matters concerning Aboriginal land