“Bush Tucker in Limmen Bight”

Artist: DANNY RILEY

Cat#: PGBL029

Size: 95 x 99cm

Medium: Painting

Acrylic on linen – painted 2004 at Waralungku Art Centre, Borroloola, NT:

This is the first ever painting by the talented, humble gentle-man and dear friend Danny Riley. He was nephew to Ginger Riley Mundawalawala and – in our opinion – had he not died prematurely he had the potentials to follow his uncle’s footsteps in the contemporary Aboriginal art world, albeit at a more modest level. His subject matter was consistently “Bush Tucker in Limmen Bight”.
This painting has some of the rawness of form and colour of a novice but is deeply inspired by his personal totemic responsibilities, that combined have resulted in a modest masterwork. His uncle’s major totemic subject was the Nark Nark, or sacred sea eagle. Danny always sourced his subject matter from the infinite variations and combinations of “Bush Tucker in Limmen Bight”, that progressively became the subject common to virtually all of his paintings.

Provenance:
Waralungku Art Centre, Code 714.04
The painting is strip mounted enabling the whole of the primed/painted linen to be visible on one plane.

Verso: Handwritten note in black texta: “Prop of BKNIGHT 4 -4”
It appears the linen was one of four blanks given to Ginger Riley before he died (Knight was a great sponsor of Ginger Riley). Danny found the linen wet, mouldy and mis-shapen some time after ‘sorry business’ following his uncle’s death and decided to start painting, initially guided by the Waralugku Art Community at Boroloola on the Macarthur River. This, his first formal painting was executed on the original linen after it was ‘resurrected’ at the Waralungku Art Centre.