Janangoo Butcher Cherel c.1920-2009

Overview

Janangoo Butcher Cherel (c. 1920 - 2009) is an artist whose work challenges categorization. Born to a Gooniyandi father and a Gija mother, he spent the early part of his life as a cattleman on Fossil Downs Station in the Kimberley,  Western Australia. He commenced to paint in the early 1990s, having settled in the neighbouring region of Fitzroy Crossing.  

 

Ever resourceful and self-contained, the artist would sit in his corner studio and paint intensively, day after day. His experiences as a stockman and of the troubled history of the Kimberley provided Janangoo Butcher Cherel with a wealth of subject matter to respond to visually.  always represented in the context of the Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) and the Law: he was an advocate for the retention of law and ceremony amongst younger generations and he used his art as a teaching mechanism: the artist taught not only the young Gooniyandi in his community at Muludja, but a world beyond. 

 

His  extensive range of imagery is drawn from observation of the minutia of the natural world to Gooniyandi cosmology, ceremony and its associated objects, and always situated in his ancestral lands. His sense of symmetry and composition, the delicacy of the touch of his brush and the fields of repeated motifs create a visual poetry that verges on the abstract, reimagining the world through nonfigurative means.'

Janangoo Butcher Cherel was proclaimed a Living Treasure by the government of Western Australia in 2004. Other than Groundwork in 2001, his work has been included in several other major exhibitions, including Images of Power; Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1993, The Imanara Series/ Kerry Stokes Collection at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2000; the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2006; Cross currents: focus on contemporary Australian art, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2007; Breaking boundaries—contemporary Indigenous Australian art from the collection, Gallery of Modern Art— Queensland Art Gallery in 2008; and Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art: Kaplan & Levi Collection, at the Seattle Art Museum in 2012.

Works
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Fish and Echidna, n.d.
    Fish and Echidna, n.d.
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Untitled, n.d.
    Untitled, n.d.
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Manoongoo II, 1998
    Manoongoo II, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Corroboree, 1997
    Corroboree, 1997
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Goonyandi - Desert Country, 1997
    Goonyandi - Desert Country, 1997
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Galoroo lll - Rainbow Serpent, 1998
    Galoroo lll - Rainbow Serpent, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Mayi, Boonga, Wanggoo and Gamba, 1998
    Mayi, Boonga, Wanggoo and Gamba, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Garringardi - Water Lily, 1995
    Garringardi - Water Lily, 1995
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Ward, 1995
    Ward, 1995
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Jilawoona - Willy Willy I, 1998
    Jilawoona - Willy Willy I, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Fallen Sticks and Leaves, 1995
    Fallen Sticks and Leaves, 1995
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Jilawoona - Willy Willy II, 1998
    Jilawoona - Willy Willy II, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Woogoo - Frog, 1998
    Woogoo - Frog, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Galaroo I - Rainbow Serpent, 1998
    Galaroo I - Rainbow Serpent, 1998
  • Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Manyi, 1998
    Manyi, 1998
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