Billy Thomas Wangkajunga, circa 1920-2012

Alternative spellings: Billy Joongoora Thomas

Billy Joongarra Thomas began painting for Waringarri Arts in Kununurra in 1995. He was already in his seventies and like his friend and fellow artist Rover Thomas had spent his youthful years droving cattle on the Canning Stock Route, deep in the remote desert regions of Western Australia. He knew his country intimately and never ceased his ceremonial immersion and involvement within it. Right up until his final years, he continued to spend long periods ‘out bush’ before coming in to Billiluna or Kununurra again to paint. He was revered as a senior lawman and healer, custodian of secret initiation rites and ceremonial songlines. 

From the mid 1980s, contemporary artworks from the Kimberley were shown in Australia’s state galleries to an appreciative public audience, and recognisable personal styles emerged. His unique, gritty ochres, with their palpable sense of earthy authenticity, employed traditional desert iconography to depict country through the lens of its ancestral associations. His cultural knowledge was formidable, but he would dot over and scrape back his mark making in order to ensure that secret, sacred aspects were veiled from general view. This gave a distinctive lightness to his work, reflected in his colour choices of much white and light grey, dusky pinks and yellow-brown ochres.

Billy’s totem was the black snake. Its sinewy swirls thread through his own Dreamtime landscapes, connecting the underground waterholes that are the vital sites of replenishment and ceremony. Waarla is a huge mudflat in the Great Sandy Desert that becomes a vast lake after rain. It is a historic meeting place for diverse desert rites that Billy maintained and taught to young initiates. His connection to the land was inextricably woven into his art. Billy’s fluidity of drawing became more accentuated in his later works. Gestural brushstrokes carry sumptuous white across the daubed and layered surface - the earthy being supplanted by the atmospheric. 

Author: Sophie Pierce, Newstead Art

References:

Ryan, Judith (editor), Colour Power - Aboriginal Art Post 1984, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2004 (C).