The first bark paintings to be collected en masse came from Oenpelli. Baldwin Spencer, the earliest patron of Aboriginal art, was inspired by the images of mimi spirits and monumental X-ray animals he saw growing and moving in layers on rocky escarpment. By directly commissioning artists of this region to paint as if on the rocks, Spencer laid the foundation for the whole bark painting industry. He also championed the figurative images used to transmit knowledge about Ancestral Beings in secular contexts. The abstract, geometric patterns used to adorn sacred objects and participants for Wubarr or Mardayin ceremonies were outside his point of reference.

The first bark painters from Oenpelli recognised Spencer’s taste for the accessible images that for him struck a chord with prehistoric caves paintings from Europe. Unwittingly, a standard or classic art was forged consisting of a conjunction between mimi and X-ray styles which partake of the ancient rock tradition.

Kunwinjku artists from western Arnhemland have gradually incorporated increasing amounts of fine cross-hatching within the figures, partly in response to suggestions from collectors and knowledge of the bark paintings produced in east Arnhemland. This geometric patterning related to ceremonial body designs is not clan-specific as in the north-east but, like an artist’s handwriting, is a mark of personal sensibility.

Although stock X-ray animals and mimi images predominate over major Ancestral and ceremonial subjects in the art of the western Kunwinjku from Oenpelli, senior artists sometimes depict aspects of Wubarr and Mardayin ceremonies seldom performed today.
Another source of transformational imagery for Kunwinjku artists is the Rainbow Serpent. Kunwinjku use the term rainbow to describe two distinct Ancestral Beings. One of these, Yingarna, is known as the original Creator Being, who is said to have androgynous qualities. In some myths Yingarna’s first-born is said to be a Rainbow Snake called Ngalyod whose s ex is equally unclear. The Kunwinjku tell how Yingarna, the most powerful and original creator held all the original Ancestors or Dreaming inside her body, until she was speared to let them out.

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