Deutscher and Hackett

Rammey Ramsey began painting for Jirrawun Arts at the beginning of the millennium where his paintings came to prominence when included in a number of group exhibitions at commercial galleries alongside contemporaries such as Paddy Bedford, Freddie Timms and Hector Jandany.

A senior Gija man of Jungurra skin, Ramsey was born at Old Greenvale Station (now part of Bow River Station) but as a young boy lived at Warlawoon, his ancestral country located to the west of Bedford Downs near Elgee Cliffs in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia. For much of his life he worked as a stockman on various surrounding Kimberley cattle stations, including Bedford Downs, Lansdowne Station and Bow River Station. Ramsey combined stock work with his collective knowledge of Gija lore and ceremony. He came to painting in his later years, but art was always an essential part of his life through ceremony.

Warlawoon Country, 2006 was first shown with William Mora Galleries at the Melbourne Art in 2006 and depicts the country of his mother and father. Warlawoon is also Ramsey’s Gija name and the main subject of his painting, portraying both a personal and collective history, and a memory of place. Notably in 2006, another of Ramsey’s work was included in the exhibition, Jirrawun in the House: A Contemporary Experience from the East Kimberley, held at Parliament House, Canberra.