National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | National Indigenous Art Triennial 07

Wakkewakken, the legless women, is associated with the ancestral honey in areas around where Nadjamerrek lives – his country Kabulwarnamyo. Dulklorrkelorrkeng has legs, arms, an ‘arse like a monkey’ and the pushed backed face of the ghost bat. Nadjamerrek depicts Dulklorrkelorrkeng with a black whip snake at its thumb. The Wakkewakken was painted first and Nadjamerrek indicated early that he was going to paint a row of four or five of these beings – obviously a change of mind occurred soon after. The areas of hatching on the malevolent Dulklorrkelorrkeng and snake have been executed by two hands – Nadjamerrek’s and his son’s wife Jenny. Nadjamerrek moved to his granddaughter’s house to finish this work. Here his son and wife were also camped and Jenny was instructed to infill the marked out areas of his design. Her practical hand is honest and workman like, differing to his lines, which not only show his confident lightness of touch, creating tonal variation, but also of an old man’s tremor. Dulklorrkelorrkeng ar