- Title: Warlawoon Country 2
- Artist: Rammey Ramsey
- Region: Kimberley
- Art Centre: Warmun Art Centre
- Medium: Etching
- Collection:
- Dimensions: 49 x 40 cm
- Edition Size: 25
- Price ($AUD): $ 770
Artwork Story
The works by Rammey Ramsey relate to the flat country in the area near Elgee Cliffs, south of Bedford Downs, which has the same Gijaname as the artist, Warlawoon. It was always his family’s country. Both parents belonged there. They used to muster cattle there for the now abandoned Elgee Cliffs Station. Rammey spent a lifetime working as a stockman and was a talented horseman. He remembers galloping over the land chasing cattle there. He also remembers the strong wind blowing from the east and throwing dust everywhere.
Rammey Ramsey’s artworks relate to the stunning gorge country north west of Halls Creek. Warlawoon is both his Gija name, and the general name for that area of country. He shows the places where rock wallabies live as well as camping areas near waterholes. Images of cliffs, hills, river beds, rocks, waterholes, roads, stockyards and meeting places appear as distillations of important features of the landscape. A line might be a road or a river, a circle a waterhole, a place or a cave, a rectangle a stockyard or hills.
Talking with Tony Oliver about the waterholes Ramsey said: ‘This is my country from my mother and father. Here are the waterholes where they used to live, camping all around there. They are dreamtime important waterholes. There my parents used to spear crocodiles. They ate turtles, fish and everything. They used to catch barramundi. This is my father and mother’s country. I am the son speaking.’ Notes:
Rammey Ramsey, a senior Gija man of Jungurra skin, was born on Old Greenvale Station, now part of Bow River Station. His own country and that of both his parents is a part of Gija country in an area to the west of Bedford Downs near Elgee Cliffs. His Gija name, Warlawoon, is the general name for the of that area of country.
© Warmun Art Centre