Yidumduma Bill Harney

Yidumduma Bill Harney: Bush Professor is an exciting retrospective celebrating the life work of Yidumduma Bill Harney, one of the last fully initiated men of the Wardaman people from the Northern Territory. 

Now 85, Yidumduma grew up learning every aspect of Wardaman culture from his mother Ludi Yibuluyma and adopted father Joe Jomornji, and was also inspired by his well known biological father William E Harney to publish several books including ‘Born Under the Paperbark Tree’ .
With his entrepreneurial and charismatic personality, Yidumduma was quickly elevated to head stockman when working in the pastoral industry as a young man. While still a pastoralist, Yidumduma is also an internationally renowned and charismatic storyteller, songman, didjeridu player and artist. His remarkable paintings capture a wide range of customary topics often connected to the stunning ancient rock art seen on his country in the Victoria River District southeast of Katherine. This extensive region of rock painting and engravings has been dubbed 'Land of the Lightning Brothers’ in reference to the dominant large figures with striped bodies and headdresses that characterize the figurative art tradition of the region. A film by that name stars Yidumduma as ceremonial performer and  major spokesman for his people’s art. 
Anthropologists have described Harney’s knowledge ‘encyclopedic in nature’ and his artwork is one way that he shares this intimate understanding with the world. 

“We were taken to sites with rock art in them when I was young, then again when I was learning, in the initiation years,” Harney said. “The Lawman training often took place at the most important sites, so that’s why I remember the images so well. We were painting ourselves up, fixing the feather decorations, singing the song. We were sleeping among them places, dreaming the stories, finding Spirituals travelling in the stars.  That’s how I paint, they’re in my mind all the time, I see them! So I can paint the Law!”

“Yidumduma Bill Harney calls himself a Bush Professor,” said Margie West, curator of the exhibition.  “His contemporary painting is a fascinating look into topics as diverse as traditional law, astronomy, bush medicines, sorcery and ancestral narrative,” she said.  “This is his first major retrospective exhibition providing national audiences with a fascinating and unique look into his world for the very first time.”
His encyclopedic knowledge of Wardaman culture is also now available on the Yubulyawan Dreaming web site, developed over a thirteen year major collaboration with educator Paul Taylor.

Harney’s work is widely exhibited, with major paintings held in the National Gallery of Australia, The Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, Bond University and the University of Sydney’s Law School. He has been also finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Art Award twelve times and staged his very first solo exhibition at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in 1990.

Image: Yidumduma Bill Harney, Lirrmingining Grasshopper Man, 2008, bark, natural pigment, vegetable fibre, feathers on wood, 142 h x 128 w x 7 d cm. Courtesy of Stephen Roseman and Rosa Saladino