Owen Yalandja facts for kids

Owen Yalandja (born in 1961) is an Aboriginal Australian artist. He is a carver, painter, and singer from the Kuninjku people. They live in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Owen is an important member of the Dangkorlo clan. This clan looks after a special place linked to female water spirits called yawkyawk. Yalandja is famous around the world for his painted carvings of these spirits. He is also known for his paintings on eucalyptus bark.

About Owen Yalandja

Owen Yalandja was born in 1961. He is part of the Kuninjku people, who live in Maningrida in Australia's Northern Territory. He is now a senior member of the Dangkorlo clan. This means he is responsible for protecting a special yawkyawk site. This site is at the Mirrayar billabong.

Yawkyawk are female water spirits. They are a bit like mermaids in Western stories. But for the Kuninjku people, yawkyawks are more than just magical creatures. They are seen as young female ancestors. These spirits can get scared by humans. If they are disturbed, they might hide in the Mirrayar billabong. This billabong is a very important place for Owen's clan.

Owen Yalandja was known for his singing during yawkyawk ceremonies. He also made carvings of the yawkyawk spirits. Owen learned how to carve from his father, Crusoe Kuningbal. After his father passed away, Owen started carving mimih spirits too.

Owen's Artistic Journey

Owen's father, Crusoe Kuningbal, was a famous leader, bark painter, and carver. He led the yawkyawk ceremonies. In the 1960s, Kuningbal started trying new ways to carve mimih spirits. For many years, he was the only artist in Maningrida who could carve them. His art had deep ceremonial and sacred meanings. It was used in a public Kuninjku ceremony called Mamurrng.

It is a tradition for Aboriginal artists like Kuningbal to teach younger male artists. They learn how to make similar art and understand its meaning. Owen and his brother, Crusoe Kurddal, both learned carving skills from their father. After their father died in 1984, Owen and Kurddal began making large carvings themselves.

Kurddal's style stayed much like his father's. He used the same red painted backgrounds and dot patterns. You can see his father's original style in Kurddal's Mimih spirit (1985). This piece is in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Owen Yalandja, however, started to try new things. He went beyond his father's teachings. He created new styles, techniques, and ideas in his art.

Owen and Kurddal became very successful artists. They carried on their father's artistic traditions. Kuningbal inspired many Kuninjku people to create similar art. But Owen and Kurddal were leaders in making new and creative mimih and yawkyawk pieces. Because of their skill, this type of art is now one of the most recognized styles from Central Arnhem Land.

Since 2014, Owen Yalandja has lived at the Barrihdjowkkeng outstation. His father set up this place. It is very close to the special yawkyawk site.

Owen's Art and Career

Instead of just painting yawkyawks on bark, Owen Yalandja focused on making large, three-dimensional wood carvings. These carvings show the spirits. The yawkyawk spirits were girls from ancient times. They changed into thin water spirits with forked fish-tails. They also have long, smooth faces.

Owen explains: "Yawkyawk is a bit like a mermaid in Western culture. Yawkyawk is my Dreaming, and she lives in the water at Barrihdjowkkeng. This is near where I live. She has always been there. I often visit this place."

Owen and his brother were inspired by their father's carving methods. But they made their carvings much larger. This helped them show the spirits better. Some of Owen's figures in the Art Gallery of New South Wales are very tall. They range from about 2.27 meters to 2.85 meters (7.5 to 9.3 feet).

Unique Artistic Techniques

A special feature of the yawkyawk carvings is their scales. Owen paints these scales using arc-like shapes. For example, he used this method with his father's dot technique in a 2001 Yawkyawk piece. You can see this at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1990, he started using a new 'V'-like technique. This made the individual scales of the yawkyawk look more watery and shiny. His 1999 Yawkyawk figure, also at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, shows this technique.

Owen remembers his father teaching him the dot pattern for scales. But he says he likes to make yawkyawk figures "according to [his] own individual ideas... this style is [his] own, no one else does them like this." Owen's new designs help show the spiritual power of these figures. This is similar to how the traditional rarrk (cross-hatching) style of bark art works.

Another new idea from Owen is his use of black backgrounds. His father was known for red painted backgrounds. While Owen sometimes uses red (like in his 2001 Yawkyawk), he is famous for his black background figures (like his 1999 Yawkyawk pieces). Both red and black paints come from natural earth pigments. The black is more unique, while red is more traditional. The black backgrounds make the figures look richer. The scale features also stand out more clearly. The bigger size, new scale techniques, and black backgrounds all show Owen's artistic creativity.

The Shape of the Spirits

The shape of Owen Yalandja's Yawkyawk figures is very special. He is known for making thin, wavy, and large sculptures. This makes the figures look graceful and beautiful. Owen chooses curved pieces of wood to show the spirits' slender, flowing bodies. This helps to show how they might look when swimming. This clever idea helps Owen create a more realistic image of the yawkyawk spirit.

The wood for these carvings comes from the kurrajong tree (Brachychiton diversifolius). This is the same wood his father used for his mimih carvings. This wood is strong. It helps prevent the wood from splitting while Owen carves the spirit's shape. Sometimes, the wood even has a natural split. This is perfect for the yawkyawk's special forked tail.

Owen is best known for his kurrajong tree carvings. But he has also painted yawkyawks on eucalyptus bark. He also paints them on hollow-log coffins, called lorrkkon. Lorrkkon are used for ceremonies and for the art market. When made for art, the artist can choose what to paint on the logs. This makes them like painted sculptures. Owen created lorrkkon for the art market. He painted them with the same scale technique he uses for yawkyawks. This pattern does not have a secret meaning. But anyone who knows Kuninjku customs will understand it shows yawkyawk scales. An example is his Ndalkodjek Yawkyawk from 2017.

Owen Yalandja's art is in many important Australian collections. It is also in the British Museum, the Hood Museum, and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection in the USA. In 2009, he was chosen for the first National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia. He has also been a finalist five times in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. In 2023, he won the Bark Painting Award at the NATSIAA awards.

Owen's Artistic Style

Many people think of Aboriginal art as only dot paintings or bark paintings. Owen Yalandja shows a different side with his carving and sculpture skills. His artistic journey truly began after his father died. Owen started trying new painted designs and colors. While his brother Kurddal kept carving mimih spirits, Owen began carving yawkyawk spirits. Other artists, like Paddy Compass Namatbara, showed yawkyawk through painting. But Owen Yalandja chose to represent them through sculpture.

He would carve their bodies like those of the mimih spirits. They were tall, very thin, and often had detailed, sometimes twisted bodies. Today, his yawkyawk sculptures are more unique and refined than his mimih figures. Mimih spirits are said to live inside the rocks of Arnhem Land. They come out at dusk through gaps in the rock. They can become invisible to humans or magically appear to trick hunters.

Owen Yalandja says, "My father... taught me and my brother... how to carve. He only did mimih spirit figures. When I first started as an artist, I used to make mimih figures as well. Then, I decided to change and to start representing yawkyawk spirit figures."

Owen and his brother's sculptures were similar to their father's. But they made the figures much larger. This helped them show the size and shape of the spirits better. Owen shows how his style changed in this quote: "I love making these sculptures, and I have invented a way to represent the fish scales on her body. The colors I use have particular meanings. I make them either red or black. I am now teaching my kids to carve, just like my father did for us. I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas... My father used to decorate them with dots. A long time ago, he showed me how to do this. But this style is my own; no one else does them like this."

Over time, Owen Yalandja's art style changed. The things he chose to represent also changed. When Owen creates his sculptures, he only uses kurrajong wood. This is the same wood his father used. He also uses natural colors from ochre to make beautiful designs on his figures. When choosing wood, he picks thin tree trunks with curved lines. This helps his figures look wavy and gives the impression of movement in the body and tail. The split at the top of the trunk often works well for making the yawkyawk's tail.

His work has been shown in Western museums and cultures. This has also allowed his style to change. He says, "We can't cut the trees in the city because there are new laws now... What we can do is join the rest of the other mainstream artists, what materials they use. But then we as Indigenous people use our traditional stories or interpretations and put it into that new art form, the new medium we taste in the cities." Even though Owen Yalandja's style might change, his art is still connected to Aboriginal tradition. It is also linked to the traditions of his father and the Dangkorlo clan. He uses sculptures, which is different from many other Aboriginal artists. This makes him stand out.

"Yawkyawk" is a famous sculpture by Owen Yalandja. It shows his art style. This piece is at The British Museum. It was made in 2011 from natural colors and kurrajong wood. Like many of his pieces, the background is black. This is different from his father's style, showing his personal touch. It was made in Maningrida and is 107 cm tall and 11.5 cm wide. The piece shows his carving skills through the small carvings he makes on the Yawkyawks body. It also shows his precise carving with the detail on the tail ends. He is known for using dots, and he includes them on the Yawkyawks body. He also uses his own techniques of making very small carvings to show the scales. While Owen is seen as a leader in this style, these carving techniques are shared among Kuninjku artists.

Art Collections

• Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Art Gallery of South Australia
• Australian Museum, Sydney
• The British Museum
• Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
• Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia
• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Queensland Art Gallery
• National Gallery of Australia
• Australian Museum, Sydney
• Musée des Confluences, Lyon, France

Major Exhibitions

• 2000: Biennale of Sydney. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
• 2001: Outside in: Research Engagements with Arnhem Land Art, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra.
• 2004: Crossing Country: The Alchemy of Western Arnhem Land Art. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
• 2007: One sun, One moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
• 2007-2009: Culture Warriors: The Australian Indigenous Art Triennial. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.
• Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH.
• 2016-17: Sentient Lands. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
• 2019-2020: The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles. Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI; The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL.