Deutscher and Hackett

This painting is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Short Street Gallery that states: ‘This is all the jila in my country including Larrparti, Kawarr, Jurntiwa and Wirrguja jila (living water). This Yulparija country is in the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia near the Percival Lakes.’

In 2007, Daniel Walbidi accompanied a number of Yulparitja elders, including his father Harry Bullen (Nabiru), on a journey from Bidyadanga back to their traditional lands around Winpa and Kirriwirri in the Great Sandy Desert. The visit was intended to reinvigorate the ancestral connections between the Yulparitja and their country, and was a watershed learning experience for the young Walbidi. It was also the first time he saw his country from the air, an experience that was to have a profound effect on his painting.¹ Painted later that same year, All the Jila maps out all the freshwater sites at Karrparti, Kawarr, Jurntiwa and Wirrguja within a tapestry of colour and forms that was to become the hallmark of Walbidi’s painting.

Studying art at school and university, Walbidi was inspired by Aboriginal artists such as Albert Namatjira, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, and closer to home, Rover Thomas whose customary lands lie adjacent to those of the Yulparitja. In 2008, Walbidi was selected for the Xstrata Emerging Indigenous Art Award at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. In 2009, his work was included in Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from Australia, the first exhibition of modern Aboriginal art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and in 2012, he was selected for unDisclosed, the second National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

WALLY CARUANA

1. The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) produced Desert Heart, a documentary film on the journey narrated by Walbidi. It was screened in March 2008.