작품 상세

ARTIST ONCE KNOWN Untitled (Mimih Spirits Dancing), c.1962 ochre on bark 70.5 x 31 cm; 86 x 45.5 cm (framed) bears inscription verso: Dorothy Bennett label and artwork information; partially effaced catalogue number in chalk; catalogue number MHA-315 PROVENANCE The Artist, painted in Western Arnhem Land, NT Collected by Dorothy Bennett, NT Collection of John Titchener, USA Michael Hamson Oceanic Art, California USA Cat No. MHA-315 Private collection, Vic EXHIBITED Reverence, D'Lan Contemporary, Sydney, 28 November 2024 – 10 January 2025 This early bark painting depicts Mimih Spirits, the ancestral beings of Western Arnhem Land said to have taught the first people how to paint and dance before retreating into the rock shelters of the escarpment. Shown in animated poses, the Mimih figures move lightly across the bark surface, their elongated white forms dotted in black ochre to suggest ceremonial body decoration. The absence of rarrking enhances their spectral quality, allowing the natural texture of the bark to evoke the rocky country from which these Mimihs roam. Painted in Western Arnhem Land and collected in the Northern Territory by Dorothy Bennett, this work later entered the collection of John Titchener (USA) and was catalogued by Michael Hamson Oceanic Art, California, documenting the interest in these early works from the international art world. Its restraint conveys the spiritual lightness and transitory presence of the Mimih, embodying both ancestral narrative and the early history of cross-cultural collecting in Arnhem Land.