Bardayal "Lofty" Nadjamerrek (–2009) was a Kunwinjku Aboriginal artist of the Mok clan. He belonged to the Duwa moiety and spoke the Kundedjnjenghmi language. He is currently referred to by his skin and clan as "Wamud Namok", following the Kunwinjku custom of avoiding use of the name of deceased persons.Carroll, Peter 'Wamud Namok - Nakodjok Namok' in Munro, Keith et al., Bardayal 'Lofty' Nadjamerrek AO, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2010, pp. 32-33
Bardayal Nadjamerrek was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2004 Australia Day Honours for "service to the preservation of Indigenous culture as a Senior Traditional man and significant artist whose work documents the relationship of the land and its ancestral past via the Mimih Spirits of rock art". He is recognized as being very knowledgeable about country, environment, and the use of ochres. He helped map out places of "Aboriginal cultural significance, sacred sites that may have been lost had they not been documented."
Early life Bardayal “Lofty” Nadjamerrek, who was otherwise known as Wamud Namok, was born around 1926 in the upper Mann River region of Western Arnhem Land to his father, Yanjorluk. When Bardayal was young, he and his family spent time traveling the plateau, “developing his detailed knowledge of the stone country.” Nadjamerrek spent much of his childhood on the plateau known as Stone Country where he lived a largely traditional hunter-gatherer life with occasional visits to missions and settlements to trade goods.
Early career Nadjamerrek was first introduced to art, specifically rock art, by his father, Yanjorluk, in the early 1940s. His early rock art style learning was influenced by the traditional rock art style of Western Arnhem Land. This area of Australia contains some of the oldest evidence and remnants of rock art.
Before formally venturing into art, he had worked on a variety of different physical jobs, such as mining tin, chopping wood, gardening, and working as a stockman. With the influence of his father's teachings, Nadjamerrek translated his knowledge into the practice of bark paintings, beginning his work in the public domain in 1969. He spent years of his apprenticeship observing the craft of his father and other men in his community paint on the rocky shelters and outcrops with natural ochres and pigments. Within the Oenpelli Mission Church, linguist Peter Carroll offered Nadjamerrek and the other men to stop chopping wood for the choice of painting. With some experience from his father's teachings, he chose to paint at the age of forty-four.
During World War 2, Bardayal's apprenticeship in art was put on hold as he was indentured to timber cutting service for the war effort. Years later he continued to work in the non-artistic sphere, taking jobs as “a miner, stockman, buffalo shooter and market gardener.” Even though his art career was put on hold, Bardayal remained increasingly active in the ceremonial activities of his clan, further strengthening his ties to traditional culture which will later be seen in his paintings.
Bardayal ‘Lofty’ Nadjamerrek's work included bark paintings, etchings, paper and print media works, as well as other reprographic techniques. His work investigates the connection between humans and nature, as well as ancient traditions while reflecting his Country and heritage and often illustrating stories which carry deep cultural significance. Through his art, Nadjamerrek strived to encourage people to develop a deeper understanding of and cultivate respect for Aboriginal cultures.
Bardayal Nadjamerrek and Community In his later life, Bardayal came to be one of the most respected elders not only in his clan, but also in the Western Arnhem Land region. In the 1970s, he was a main contributor in helping Indigenous families return to their traditional lands and establishing six outstations.
After almost two decades, he was finally able to return to his own clan estate. Unfortunately, during his time away the Australian government halted stage funding for outstations. With his prior experience with other clans, Nadjamerrek created the Kabulwarnamyo outstation by himself in the mid 1990s. Kabulwarnamyo is a part of the Ankung Djang estate which belonged to the Mok clan. This outstation attracted various kinds of people from other parts of Australia and the world, including anthropologists, linguists, botanists, ecologists, and art historians, who came to learn more about the vast landscape of Arnhem Land. Nadjamerrek served as an encyclopedia for all knowledge pertaining to his culture and Arnhem Land, promoting Indigenous land management, culture, and heritage to all new people traveling to the landscape. Out of this outstation also came community programs and research projects which promoted these three aspects as well.
Rock Art Nadjamerrek created his first rock art painting around the age of 13, at a place called Kundjorlomdjorlom, under the close observance of his father, Nanjorluk, an accomplished rock-art artist. His father Yanjorluk taught him to paint in the upper Mann River region of western Arnhem Land in the 1940s. The rock art of the region contains some of the oldest evidence of replicated image-making known in the history of art.
Even in modern times, these rock art sites remain incredibly important, and they are so numerous. Arnhem Land is covered in sandstone escarpments, which create wet season shelters that provide security in the wet times and kept them cool in the hot summers. Shelters can include hundreds of painted images. Many believe that the palimpsest of artistic styles found on these escarpments date back to being done by the mimih (rock spirits). Older generations visit these shelters and see these as places as a spiritual experience. In a more rare case, there are restricted rock art sites that are only allowed to be visited by senior men, as they have deep connections to secret ceremony. It is not an archaeological investigation like it is to the Balanda; these are the "places where they grew up as children and where their memories of dabbarrabbolk ('the old people') are centred. The paintings in the shelters are sometimes quite recent." Artistic heritage is woven into these paintings, so traveling to visit them was almost like a pilgrimage to understand where they came from. However, there are many of these escarpments that are also very secular in use, using those rock paintings as decoration.
However, most rock art was made for educational purposes. There is a wonderful story of Nadjamerrek using his rock-art inspired drawings to teach his son how to butcher an emu. "His son Makkumakku had returned from a hunting excursion with an emu, and he followed his father's instructions on how to prepare it for the ground oven and then butcher it after cooking. This lesson was explained with a series of drawings while the emu cooked. At first Bardayal illustrated, in simple line drawings, some of the salient parts of the butchered emu. He then drew the complete animal, citing all the names of the different body parts specific to emus. The emu was then pulled out of the ground oven and eaten, while reflecting on the illustrated lesson in emu-preparation etiquette"
Contact Rock Art Contact rock art refers to Indigenous artworks that depict subject matter introduced during periods of cross-cultural contact, especially within colonial contexts. For a while, contact art was especially seen as being untraditional, as it did not depict subject matter that was deemed "Indigenous" and culturally significant. They would paint new contact subject matter, like sailing vessels, buffalo, and firearms, in addition to their own spiritual stories. After first contact in Oenpelli in 1925, Aboriginal artists continue to transform and innovate rock art, showing it as a recurring means of expression and transmission of identity and cross-cultural knowledge. They prove as counter-colonial narratives to the dominant European story, while also showing small, vital moments of interaction and history.
With Nadjamerrek, he is considered to be one of the most prominent Aboriginal artists, cultural leaders, and a mentor to contemporary artist, whose tradition is steeped in the rock art tradition. He is the only artist documented to have articulated the contexts of his rock art creation. He would go into an incredible amount of detail, such as when, where, and why he created his rock art works." With his father and grandfather being prominent rock painters, he wanted to develop his own rock art language. Coming back to his Mother's country, "he painted two goat figures and a firearm in the Nakurlkboy shelter, located near today’s Kamarrkawarn outstation (see Fig. 1). He explained the motivation for these figures: “I saw it at Maranboy, and when I returned, I painted it. The children had never seen one, nor had the old people. They didn’t know what a goat was at all."
He depicted his Mother's moiety stories and Dreamings of her Country. He reflects his subjects with striking realism and naturalism, yet his main priority was always education. With both historical and contemporary (contact) depictions, he wanted to transform the unfamiliar into being familiar. His works were thus very didactic, trying to convey their experience with a subject despite another group not sharing the same experience. He made his works as universal as possible. He incorporated his cultural knowledge through narratives and designs, as well as sometimes incorporating the new pieces of culture introduced through Contact. Nadjamerrek was seen as a middleman, or someone who worked as a cultural mediator. In order to keep his position of pristine cultural knowledge as a senior artist, he often did not include Contact objects. He felt responsible for protecting the integrity of the Dreaming and Country stories of his family moieties. However, rock art is a constant negotiation, with different artists using different tools and techniques to create a different dialogue with rock art and contact interactions.
Comparison In comparison to a concurrent painter, Nadjamerrek and Yirawala demonstrate different ways in which to depict a Dreaming, especially being that they are from different country. Yirawala was a famous bark painter who brought ceremonial power to bear in his paintings through his use of cross-hatching. He would fill the entire space through manipulation of the serpent, filling the canvas with the sacred body painting designs and emphasizing power and dynamism. However, Nadjamerrek's use of rarrk was single line, protecting the sacred clan designs from the balanda (the non-initiated members). Nadjamerrek blends the traditional motif with an innovative landscape approach, making the spiritual and ecological come together. Nadjamerrek takes a more didactic and instructive approach, while Yirawala took more creative liberties in terms of the shape and interpretation of the Kunwinjku motif. It is clear how Nadjamerrek focused on the educational aspects, with his bark paintings meant to be seen by the Antipodean viewer, not putting the Contact and colonizing perspective to the center of their works and preserving their meanings.
Later artistic career Bardayal Nadjamerrek is widely regarded as one of the greatest figurative Indigenous Artists by outsiders, but within his community he is highly recognized as a pioneering contemporary artist. In 1969, he formally began his artistic career painting at the Church Mission Society's Oenpelli mission under the linguist Peter Carroll. While this was the beginning of his professional career, Bardayal had decades of experience observing rock-art galleries and his elders. He became one of the main artists as the mission expanded the art market.