Michael Nelson Jagamara (c. 1945–2020) Warlpiri people, Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, 1985, Art/Craft Program, Parliament House Art Collections, Department of Parliamentary Services, Canberra, ACT. © Estate of the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd.

Cultural warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that the following contains the names, images and voices of people who are deceased.

The work known as Possum and Wallaby Dreaming (1985) by Warlpiri artist Michael Nelson Jagamara AM was chosen as the design for the stone mosaic pavement on the Forecourt of Parliament House.

The mosaic design depicts the tracks of people from the red kangaroo, rock wallaby, bush-tail possum, and goanna ancestors.

The elements flow in concentric circles, representing the gathering of these ancestors to talk and enact ceremonial obligations, in the same way that Parliament House functions as a meeting place. As Jagamara later said of Parliament House:

… this place where all Aboriginal people come and meet together, just like we do in ceremony, to discuss and work together …¹

He also said:

A lot of white people, you don’t seem to understand … They look at my work, all they see is a pretty painting, a pretty picture. That’s … why they asked me to come to Canberra and explain this forecourt mosaic to help people understand that it means so much … [more] than the pretty painting.

You’re the white people took this country from us. You must recognise, you must recognise Aboriginal people have our own culture, our Dreamtime, ceremonies, place where we held our corroborees for our Dreaming, dreaming stories … It is what my paintings are about.²

Jagamara’s paintings often reference the Country in the Mt Singleton area in central Australia, and draw on the Dreaming stories of yam, possum, kangaroo, emu, and lightning.

Jagamara was one of five artists from Papunya Community in central Australia who submitted 1:10 scale designs for the Forecourt mosaic pavement. The others were Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO (c. 1932–2002), Anmatyerre people; Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1927–2002), Warlpiri people; Two Bob Tjungurrayi (c. 1938–2000), Warlpiri people; and Maxie Tjampitjinpa (c. 1945–97), Warlpiri people. All the submissions for the Forecourt design are in the Parliament House Art Collections.

Jagamara’s Possum and Wallaby Dreaming is on public display on the First Floor Gallery overlooking the Marble Foyer in Parliament House.

Michael Nelson Jagamara
Michael Nelson Jagamara AM (c. 1945–2020) (also spelt Tjakamarra or Jakamara) was a Warlpiri Elder from the Northern Territory. He was born at Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs) in the Northern Territory and grew up under the teachings of his father. As a child he moved to Yuendumu to be educated at a mission school. In 1962, he left Yuendumu to work as a cattleman before he enlisted in the Australian Army. After the death of his father in 1976, he moved to Papunya to support his family.

Jagamara was one of the foremost proponents of the Western Desert art movement. In the early 1980s, he began painting under the guidance of his grandfather Minjina Jakamarra. As the custodian of many Dreaming stories, he believed in the importance of teaching and sharing traditions and culture through his art.

In 1984, Jagamara’s career launched when he won the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award (now the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards) with the work Three Ceremonies (1984). His international profile was secured over the following decade with commissioned works for the Sydney Opera House (1987) along with the Forecourt of Parliament House (1986–87). He was represented as an individual artist in the Biennale of Sydney (1986) and toured the USA with the exhibition ‘Dreamings: the art of Aboriginal Australia’ (1988). Along with Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder, Jagamara was invited in 1989 to hand-paint an M3 race car for the BMW Art Cars series.

After a controversial dispute in 1985 with Imants Tillers regarding the conscious copying of Jagamara’s cultural motifs, the two went on to establish a collaborative practice between 2001 and 2008. Jagamara was the president of the Papunya Community Council in the 1990s, and again in 2002–04, and a central figure at the Papunya Tjupi Arts Centre, established in 2007. He was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (1993) for his services to art, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of NSW (2008).

References
1. Michael Nelson Jagamara, speech outside Parliament House, Canberra, op. cit.
2. Ibid.