David Dunn
Born: 1964
Language: WIRADJURI-ENGLISH
Country: Wiradjuri Nation
Area: Trangie

Hi, my name is David Dunn; My Aboriginal name is Gaagang, which means elder brother. I come from a small town 50 miles west of Dubbo called Trangie (in Aboriginal this means quick, intercourse). I use some of the traditional symbols my father and uncles showed me but I try to use my own style. I started painting professionally in 1986, which means I have been painting for nineteen years. I remember drawing and coloring in with my mother and father when I was about five years old. I know the tradition was handed down to me then. My parents are still my inspiration to my works now. I paint from the heart and from the memories of my childhood, I have ten children, I paint a lot about them, Kids are so important. I get a lot of enjoyment out painting but the fun part is when I see other people’s expressions while they are viewing one of my works. I also paint from the heart not from a picture. I was told by an Elder from the Warburton community to paint what you feel not what you see. When I hold the brush this is all I do, someone else "(God)" does the painting; I'm just a tool.
 

Baiame

 

Baiame is the great koori ancestral beings of the Creation period. His presence is felt throughout many Indigenous Australian communities and his journeys are recorded in song, dance, art, oral histories and Dreaming sites. During the creation period he moved across the land, helping develop the landscape and giving life and law to man and other aspects of the environment. When one of his journeys was completed, Baiame returned to the sky but appears at different times to remind koori people of the law. This painting depicts the great Baiame he spoke to me and told me that everyone should create there own spirit designs, and he gave me my spirit designs to use myself, he came to me by the night sky and of the full moon and the stars shinning brightly, he gave me stories to use and to tell, he gave me paint and brushes to paint colorful images with my spirits use the color of the stars in your art, he told me these are special and people will adore them, so this is my dreaming this why I share for you to view, my stories my dreaming, about the moon, the sun, the stars, the fires, the wind, the land and the water. The three circles joined by squiggly lines represent my signature and the three rivers of the "Wiradjuri Nation", The Wambool (Macquarie), Kalar (Lachlan) and Murrumbidgerie (Murrumbidgee). The spirit of the Wiradjuri people lives on in descendants of those who first inhabited this country. I acknowledge and honour the spiritually and traditions of my people (Wiradjuri) - the first who occupied this land. ©