Cyclone Tracy – Jane Tinmarie-Yalunga, 2023

$1,250.00

  • 80cm x 80cm
  • 2023
  • Ochre on Canvas
  • Catalog No: 1106-440/23

This is my old man’s [Rover Thomas] story about Cyclone Tracy in Darwin in 1974, two years after I was born.

Rover got his joonba, Goorirr Goorirr , from this Cyclone. Out near that store [Warmun’s Wungkul store] a woman had a crash and she went and visited my old man in a dream.

When I was first learning how to paint I was following my father and looking at him. I was looking after him and painting when he was at the old people home and I used to paint.

The Goorirr Goorirr was found by Rover in 1975, not long after the disastrous Cyclone Tracy had all but destroyed Darwin, the nearest large population centre to Turkey Creek. It came to him in his Dreams over period of time. As he shared the knowledge he had gained in this way, its significance was recognised. Out of this emerged the community celebration of Goorirr Goorirr. In the next few years Goorirr Goorirr was regularly performed at Turkey Creek and taken to other communities as well.

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