Arthur Pambegan Jnr

b. 1936

Arthur Pambegan Jnr lives in Aurukun on Cape York Peninsula. He is an Elder of the Wik Mungkan people and a member of the Winchanam ceremonial group. His main traditional lands lie between the Small Archer River (Tompaten Creek) and the Watson River. Pambegan grew up under the strict reign of the Presbyterian Mission Superintendent William MacKenzie, and was subsequently raised in the boys’ dormitory, until he was old enough to work. He has worked as a pearling diver, timber and cane-cutter, ringer and yardman, and as a housepainter.

His father, Arthur Pambegan Snr, was highly respected and managed to spend time with Arthur, teaching him traditional knowledge and carving techniques for the ceremonial sculptures. The first time they worked together on the traditional Winchanam ceremonial carvings of the Bonefish Story Place and Flying Fox Story Place was in 1962 Those works were featured in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies film, `Dances at Aurukun' by Ian Dunlop, made in 1962. They also formed part of the most significant sculptural group to have come from Aurukun, totalling some one hundred sculptures that have since been held in the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Since his father’s passing Arthur is the senior songman for the Winchanam people. He performs the lead ceremonial dance roles and is a pre-eminent carver of his ancestral totemic stories.  He has toured extensively as a dancer and as an artist around Australia. His exemplary skills as a sculptor have seen his work exhibited in several institutional and private Art Collections, in Australia and internationally.

‘I do my work because I got the feeling. What the old people gave me, I got in here – in my heart, my mind. I like to pass it onto others now – young ones’. ARTHUR KOO’EKKA PAMBEGAN JUNIOR