Artiste : Timo Hogan

Titre de l'œuvre : Lake Baker

Format : 137 x 90 cm

Provenance et certificat : centre d'art aborigène du Spinifex Art Project

Référence de cette peinture : 19-31

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Explications pour cette œuvre :

Timo (1973) has painted the site of Pukunkura (Lake Baker) which is situated on the north west boundary of traditional Spinifex Lands. He has authority to paint this country through his direct paternal line. There is a powerful Wanampi (Water Serpent) who today still resides in that rock hole and extreme caution must be observed when present here. There is a ritual of washing one’s feet and underarms and singing a sacred song to show respect to the Wanampi and to let him know you are family. This is still a dangerous place and is strictly a ‘Mens’ site and women must not stop here.

Timo grew up with stories of life in the Spinifex Lands. His mother and family dug themselves into the sand dunes to try to avoid the smoke from the Maralinga atomic bomb. Before he was born she walked to a location close to Tjuntjuntjara and found a pile of tin meat left by the patrol officer. A white man came and picked all the people up in an old Landrover and drove them into Cundeelee Mission. Later his mother was driven from Cundeelee to the old hospital in Kalgoorlie for Timo’s birth in 1973.

After his birth his mother succumbed to the lure of alcohol in Kalgoorlie and struggled to look after a new baby properly. Timo’s father came and took him to Mt Margret. He spent his formative years here with his father, Neville McCarthur and his stepmother Alkawari. They lived at Mt Margaret until Timo was about 14 when the family moved to Warburton, closer to his father’s traditional lands. Alkawari did not speak Pitjantjatjara or Ngaanyatjarra as she was from a different Aboriginal tribe, but spoke in English to Timo and he is now fluent in all three languages.

Once back in country Timo’s father took him to all the culturally significant places. He wanted to introduce him to the country, to the spirit caretakers and teach him the law. “ My father took me to Lake Baker, all around, rockhole and all. I know all these places but I can’t show them. Millmillpa (dangerously sacred). I’m taking over this country now, as my father is getting old. I’m the only son and people say we are like twins, my father and me. We look the same. I know how to use spears – he taught me everything.”

Timo went through Men’s Business initiation at Warburton. The group travelled down to Tjuntjuntjara on the business run. “ My father’s really a Spinifex Man. His brothers are Hogan and Jamieson”. After going through business Timo settled in Tjuntjuntjara and lived with his mother. His father visited regularly before he got too old to make the long journey.