Rover Joolama Thomas

Born 1926 in Gunawaggi, Great Sandy Desert, Australia
Died 1998 in Warmun, Kimberley region, Australia
Kukatja/Wangkajunga

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Cyclone Tracy 1991
natural earth pigments and binder on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1991

In a series of dreams in 1975, Rover Thomas was visited by his recently deceased kinship mother who shared what her spirit had learnt on its journey back to the Kimberley. Colonisation, she cautioned, had so tortured the country that an enraged Jabanunga Goorialla (Rainbow Serpent) had been compelled to destroy Garramilla/Darwin in the form of a cyclone, which the artist understood to be Cyclone Tracy (1974). The serpent’s wrath was a sign to reinvigorate Aboriginal practices throughout the region. In response, Thomas created a joonba (song and dance cycle) depicting this story and its warning.

This work placed Thomas at the centre of a cultural revival for the Aboriginal people of the Kimberley region. One of two Aboriginal artists to represent Australia for the first time at the Venice Biennale, in 1990, Thomas developed a personal style rooted in the visual traditions of the Kimberley, which became his constant source of inspiration.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.