Who is rover thomas

His exploration into art began in when working on the Kurirr-Kurirr ceremony, which was given to him in a dream after the sudden death of a relative. He created paintings on wooden boards that were used by participants in the ceremony. With traditional mythology and storytelling so essential to his work, Thomas created a style that presented the landscape of his art as both a physical location and a spiritual site.

Considered an innovator, his style changed the way the art world viewed Aboriginal Art, redefining the framework in which it was conceptualised. In the early s Aboriginal workers on the pastoral stations across the Kimberley were summarily sacked and went to live in camps adjacent to white townships, precipitating dislocation and the disintegration of cultural practices.

As a consequence of these enforced actions, Thomas went to live in the community of Warmun next to the township of Turkey Creek. Darwin is regarded by the Aboriginal elders of the Kimberley as the capital of European culture in the northwest of the continent, and they interpreted the natural disaster as a warning from an ancestral Rainbow Serpent the creator of monsoons, storms and cyclones for Aboriginal people to retain their culture.

One consequence was that a number of ceremonies were revived and performed in public as a sign of cultural affirmation and renewal across the Kimberley. In the aftermath of the cyclone, Rover Thomas received an ancestral revelation that gave him ownership of a new ceremony, the Kurirr Kurirr. After his parents died, he was adopted by a drover and became a stockman himself. His family moved in different directions and some of them also became the artists. His remarkable life story reveals the great impact that the stock route had on the migration of Aboriginal families and, which is more interesting, the artistic movements that have emerged along that way.

In , a major Cyclone Tracy caused the devastation and chaos in the Northern Territory. The Aboriginal people from Kimberly saw this disaster as a warning from the ancestral Rainbow Serpent , protector of the land, its people and source of all life, because of a rapid change and modernization of Indigenous tribes. Thomas experienced the providence, a dream that involved the spirit of his dead aunt who inspired him to create Krill Krill ceremony , a public performance which included songs and dances cycles associated with the painted boards.

Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle. Flinders University Art Museum Adelaide. Rover Thomas Paintings. Rover is one of the central figures of East Kimberley painting and a major force in the development of Australian Aboriginal art. All paintings available for sale online by enquiry.

Read More. Rover Thomas Jabajari Jap ochre on canvas x 90 cm Sold.