About Djambu (Sambo) Barra Barra (c1946-2005)

Djambu Barra Barra was born around 1946 in Wagilak country near Nilipidgi on the Walker River. He was raised in the Wagilak community without communication with the modern Western world, a unique upbringing compared to the other Ngukurr artists who grew up in contact with Europeans. Barra Barra moved out of the Wagilak community after his entire family was killed. He began traveling throughout Arnhem land, where he learned more about his culture – specifically certain rituals, ceremonies, and stories. Throughout his travels, he learned about a variety of Arnhem land art styles and ceremonial painting in different clans. He was able to carry this information with him and disseminate it when he settled down in Ngukurr, a Northern Territory in Australia. Djambu Barra Barra's career began in Ngukurr (a community located in south-eastern Arnhem Land along the Roper River) around 1987. As a young man, he learned important ceremonies and how to paint bodies and bark. Barra Barra was aware of painting styles from various parts of Arnhem. His heritage was Yolngu, but his art resembles central and western Arnhem Land traditions more closely. Barra Barra's early works tended to be physically massive and best known for his use of bright, bold colours and traditional designs, even being recorded asking for "fluoro colours" in 1987. He was also able to render rarrk—a traditional cross-hatching design—in acrylic paint. His compositions were typically dense and dominated by large figurative forms. His style often also saw symmetrical and circular backgrounds which draw attention to the central figures—especially in depictions of ceremonies. Many of his paintings are in the figurative tradition, and feature ancestral beings and mortuary scenes, as well as iterations of both his and his mother's dreamings (kangaroo, crocodile). Yolngu art can be generally divided into two representational groups: figurative and geometric. The figurative system consists of iconically motivated images—meaning that there is a similarity between the signifier and the signified. Djambu also painted "big corroboree stories" relating to various ceremonies. A recurring figure in these ritual paintings was the devil devil, also called Nakaran. He is depicted as a giant man and a sorcery figure with magic powers.