The Spirit Of Well Being II (Artist: Jane Kemarre Doolan)

This painting tells a story about physical and spiritual health for Anwernekehne (all the indigenous people of Australia) in modern times, living in two cultures. It’s about how we need and how we can still use our own culture to help us live happy and healthy lives. The centre circle shows two Ngangkere (traditional healers), a man and a woman, healing and passing on knowledge to a child. They are also caring for the child. The halos around their heads and hands show the power of traditional knowledge. Their hands are healing hands. The markings on the figures are the body paintings still used in ceremony today and they show that culture has survived and that the spirit of Anwernekenhe is alive and strong throughout the land. The band around the circle represents all the community, men and women, young and old, supporting each other. It is also about how the old Ngangkeres can teach the young Ngangkeres how to use their inner spirit for healing.

All the golds and reds represent the inland people. The blues and whites represent the people from the coastal and island areas. The blue of the big central circle also represents the coastal and island people coming into the centre and joining with the desert people to talk about the different kinds of bush tucker and showing the community that health is very important. There are elders in the circle who are passing on knowledge and health workers from the communities. The circle represents everyone working together for health including doctors and nurses who come to the communities to check up on us and our health and give us advice on health issues.

The small circles show some of the bush tuckers we eat and represent all the good food we need to eat to keep healthy. In the bottom circles you can see alangkwe (bush banana) and awele-awele (bush tomato). And in the top circle are yerrampe (honey ants) which are like healthy bush sweets.

These days we need to show our children our cultural side as well as the European side of healthy food and exercising to have better growth in life and to keep strong. As well as buying food from the shops, we still go hunting and collecting bush tucker following in the footsteps of our ancestors and trying to keep our culture strong. This painting is about how our ancestors still teach us to eat good food and live healthy lives.

Jane Kemarre Doolan