Paddy Jaminji
Paddy Jaminji (c.1912–1987) is now regarded as one of the founding figures of the contemporary East Kimberley Art movement. Working from Warmun (Turkey Creek) in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia, Jaminji helped pioneer a radically new form of Aboriginal painting based on ochre, aerial views of Country, and ceremonial imagery connected to the Krill Krill ceremony. Although often overshadowed by his more famous nephew Rover Thomas, many of the visual foundations of East Kimberley painting first emerged through Paddy Jaminji’s painted dance boards created during the 1970s.
Born a Kija man, Paddy spent much of his early life working as a stockman on Kimberley cattle stations before becoming a respected elder at Warmun. His earliest surviving paintings were ceremonial boards carried by dancers during Krill Krill corroborees. These powerful ochre compositions differed dramatically from the dot painting traditions developing simultaneously in Papunya and Central Australia, establishing what would become recognised internationally as the East Kimberley style.
Today, Paddy Jaminji is increasingly recognised as an important precursor to later East Kimberley artists including Rover Thomas Paddy Bedford and Queenie McKenzie. His paintings are admired for their direct spiritual force, earthy ochre surfaces, and strong connection to Kimberley Country and ceremony.
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Painting Style
Paddy Jaminji’s paintings were fundamentally different from the Aboriginal dot painting traditions emerging in Central Australia during the 1970s, and equally distinct from the figurative spirit imagery associated with Wandjina Art from the north-west Kimberley. The East Kimberley region possesses its own cultural traditions, ceremonial systems, and relationship to Country, and Jaminji’s paintings reflect this unique regional identity.
His works were often highly simplified aerial depictions of Country that followed the actual contours of the landscape. Using natural earth pigments and traditional ochres, Jaminji created paintings with heavily textured surfaces that conveyed the physical presence of Kimberley Country itself. Unlike the dense dotting of Papunya painting, his compositions relied on broad areas of ochre, stark linear divisions, and powerful spatial reduction.
Among his most important subjects were powerful mythic beings connected to ceremony and Dreaming. He frequently depicted spirit figures, devil-devils, and Tawurr, the ancestral half-kangaroo being associated with Elgee Cliffs, an important ceremonial and rock art site in the East Kimberley.
Although less formally refined than the later paintings of Rover Thomas, Paddy Jaminji’s works possess an extraordinary immediacy and ceremonial force closely connected to the origins of the Krill Krill tradition itself.
Painting Career
Paddy Jaminji’s painting career emerged directly from the ceremonial origins of the East Kimberley art movement. During the 1970s, his nephew Rover Thomas experienced a series of profound spiritual visions following the death of a relative. These visions became the foundation for the Krill Krill ceremony, an important ceremonial performance involving song, dance, and painted boards depicting ancestral spirits and sacred places.
Paddy Jaminji painted many of the earliest ceremonial boards used during these Krill Krill performances. Carried by dancers during corroborees, the boards were radically different from the dot painting traditions simultaneously developing at Papunya in Central Australia. Instead of dense symbolic dotting, Jaminji used broad ochre fields, simplified aerial perspectives, and powerful ceremonial imagery rooted in Kimberley Country and Kija cultural traditions.
A pivotal moment occurred in 1977 when arts advisor Mary Macha visited Warmun (Turkey Creek) and recognised the artistic significance of the Krill Krill boards. At first, Paddy Jaminji was reluctant to part with the paintings, partly because suitable materials were difficult to obtain in the remote Kimberley. When Macha arranged a steady supply of painting boards and materials, the foundations of the contemporary East Kimberley painting movement were established.
Throughout the early 1980s, Mary Macha actively promoted Jaminji’s paintings and later provided him with studio space in Perth, where he worked alongside Rover Thomas. Between 1983 and 1987 Paddy produced some of his most important paintings before deteriorating eyesight eventually left him almost completely blind.
Biography
Paddy Jaminji (c.1912–1996) was a senior Kija man from the East Kimberley region of Western Australia and is now regarded as one of the seminal figures in the development of contemporary East Kimberley Art. Born in the country surrounding Bedford Downs and the upper Ord River district, Jaminji spent his early life living traditionally on Kimberley Country before later working as a stockman on Bedford Downs and Old Lissadell Station. Like many Aboriginal men of his generation, his deep knowledge of the landscape came through both ceremonial life and years spent travelling vast cattle station country.
During the mid-1970s, following the widespread movement of Aboriginal workers away from Kimberley cattle stations, Paddy Jaminji became one of the first senior Aboriginal people to settle permanently at Warmun (Turkey Creek). He emerged as an important ceremonial elder and cultural authority within the community at precisely the moment East Kimberley painting was beginning to develop.
Although Rover Thomas would later become internationally celebrated, many people remain unaware that Paddy Jaminji produced some of the earliest painted boards associated with the Gurirr Gurirr (Krill Krill) ceremony during the late 1970s. These works were based upon spiritual visions experienced by Rover Thomas and became the foundation for the East Kimberley painting movement. As Rover Thomas later acknowledged, Paddy Jaminji played an important role in inspiring his decision to paint.
Working with natural ochres and resins, Jaminji created bold, heavily textured paintings grounded in his own ceremonial beliefs, spiritual experiences, and connection to Country. However, severe trachoma gradually destroyed his eyesight, and by 1987 he was almost completely blind. Despite this decline, Paddy Jaminji’s work remains deeply important as a record of the formative years of East Kimberley painting and the extraordinary flowering of Kimberley Aboriginal art during the late twentieth century.
Why Paddy Jaminji Matters
Paddy Jaminji occupies a pivotal position in the history of contemporary Aboriginal Australian art. Although frequently overshadowed by his nephew Rover Thomas, Jaminji was one of the first artists to translate ceremonial East Kimberley designs and sacred narratives into portable painted boards, helping lay the foundations for what is now recognised internationally as the East Kimberley Art movement.
His importance lies not only in his paintings themselves, but in the transformation they represent. The ceremonial boards created for the Krill Krill ceremony marked a major shift in Aboriginal art history, where ritual objects associated with dance and ceremony began evolving into autonomous works of fine art. This transition would ultimately influence an entire generation of Kimberley artists including Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, and Paddy Bedford.
Unlike the dense symbolic dot painting traditions developing simultaneously in Papunya, Paddy Jaminji’s paintings established a distinctly Kimberley visual language based on natural ochres, simplified aerial views of Country, powerful negative space, and direct ceremonial imagery. His works possess a raw spiritual immediacy closely connected to the land, ancestral beings, and ceremonial traditions of the East Kimberley.
Today, Jaminji is increasingly recognised by collectors and scholars as one of the foundational figures in the emergence of modern Kimberley painting and one of the earliest pioneers of contemporary ochre-based Aboriginal abstraction.
Paddy Jaminji Images
The following images of the Artworks of Paddy Jaminji are not a complete list of his works. They do however give a good idea of the style and variety of this Aboriginal Artist.
