Title

Jandanay, Hector.

Author

Australian Art Print Network.

Source

[Not applicable]

Publication date

2001

Type

Biography

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Hector Jandanay

Hector Jandanay has been painting in Warmun since the establishment of the Bough Shed School in 1979.

He began painting to relate traditional stories to school children at the Mirrilingki Catholic Mission in Warmun, a pioneering institution in the move for cultural resurgence. Jandanay was a communal leader of this mission and created his own religious philosophy, blending his ancestral Gija law with the stories of Christ learned from Catholic missionaries.

His own history includes an amazing story of survival. His grandmother was killed by white people when she was pregnant and died giving birth to Jandanay’s mother; his father was killed by white people soon after he was born. Both of his parents belong to the country that he often paints, Ngarrgooroon, the traditional estate just north of Purnululu.

Jandanay’s work is known for its restrained use of colour and sombre tones, and his tendency to concentrate on the metaphysical. His subjects vary from minimal depictions of the landscape to mythological interpretations of Dreaming events. He first began printmaking in 1995 in collaboration with printmaker Theo Tremblay.

Biography courtesy of The Australian Art Print Network, 2001.
© Australianprints