Warlawoon Country, 2006
Rammey Ramsey
natural earth pigment with synthetic binder on linen
180.0 x 149.5 cm
Jirrawun Arts, Wyndham, Western Australia
Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above in 2007
Text supplied from Ken Watson (co-ordinator) at Jirrawun Arts to the vendor at the time of purchase in 2007:
During 2004 – 05 Rammey Ramsey completed a large body of work relating to the flat country in the area near Elgee Cliffs south of Bedford Downs. This area has the same Gija name as the artist, Warlawoon. It was always his family’s country. Both parents belonged there. They used to muster cattle there for the now abandoned Elgee Cliffs Station. The artist spent a lifetime working as a stockman and was a talented horseman. He remembers galloping over the land chasing cattle there.
Ramsey lives most of the time with his family at Bow River Station. He comes to the Jirrawun studio several times a year for periods of three to six weeks. He watched Paddy Bedford working with ‘wet on wet’ paint on his canvases and said to Artistic Director Tony Oliver “I want to paint that ngarranggarni (dream time) way like that’. Also while painting he talked with Tony Oliver about the country, about the dust, the wind, the clouds, the smoke, living, mustering cattle, the water holes. Ramsey developed the painting style seen in these works through experimentation with the paint and through these conversations about the country and his feeling for the country.
Ramsey spoke about the Warlawoon Country paintings.
‘This is my country that I painted here. When the strong wind comes blowing from the east it throws dust everywhere. The dust floats when the wind blows from the east. They used to walk along in the hot sun long ago. When they had been walking in the hot sun, never mind, they would bathe in the water and start off again in the cool time of the day.
It is a place for the rainbow snake, the dangerous one. In olden days just anyone could not go there.
In early days if strange people went there the people who belonged there had to perform a welcoming ceremony, putting water from the country on them (the strangers). Lots of people would come to dance Joonba style song and dance. Then they would split up and leave. Those two (my parents) used to go around there. They lived there.’