Diverbird Mardayin
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Artist statement, c.2001I went and I drew some Mardayin from my own country where there is water. It is a secret place: women and children are not allowed to see it. There is a crow there by itself at the billabong – it is not swampy country, but rocky and hilly, and the billabong is up in the hills. My spirit goes back to that billabong. I felt I could draw it now (I have not drawn it before). A long time ago my father and his grandfather went there but they kept it secret. It is our country. There is a creek with a billabong in the centre and with a rock in the middle. It is my Dreaming place. Today I painted it. I drew all those lines, then I brought it out and showed people. I did not take this from anyone, it is from my own country. (Story relates to a painting by the artist of the same subject, in Croft, Indigenous Art: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2001)