William King Jungala | 'Big Water, 2007' | 30x60cm

Code: MAWK07006

Artist: William King Jungala

Title: Big Water

Area: Katherine, NT

Community: Gurindji / Waanyi

Medium: Acrylic On Canvas

Size: 30x60cm

Year: 2007

Big Water sits within William King Jungala's lifelong practice of painting through the elements — fire, air, earth and water — each one a way of describing the natural forces his people sought to live in balance with. Water Dreaming carries stories of rain, rivers and waterholes passed down through Gurindji and Waanyi knowledge, the kind of knowledge his grandfather, a well-travelled desert elder, gave him as a boy. For King, water is never simply scenery; it is memory and movement, the way Country holds and releases what sustains it.

William King Jungala was born in Katherine, Northern Territory, a proud member of the Gurindji people, whose skin name was Jungala. His deep cultural grounding came from early childhood spent with his father, of the Waanyi people, and his grandfather, a well-travelled Gurindji desert elder who passed down the stories and knowledge of Country that would shape his worldview and his art. At eighteen he moved to Adelaide and completed an apprenticeship in carpentry, but his true passion remained painting, and by 1994 he had committed to it fully. He developed a distinctive style blending traditional Aboriginal symbolism with a contemporary, urban aesthetic, and his characteristic use of circular motion expressed his belief that nothing has a beginning or an end, a visual statement of the interconnectedness of life, nature and time. His work drew heavily on his connection to land and culture, often working through fire, air, earth and water, symbolic of the harmony his people sought with natural forces. His work was selected for exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in British Columbia during the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and he exhibited widely across Australia with works collected internationally. His paintings continue to resonate for their depth, detail and spiritual intensity.