A Fine Old New Guinea Gope Spirit Board Era River Area Papuan Gulf Papua New Guinea

A Fine Old New Guinea Gope Spirit Board from the Era River Area Papuan Gulf  Province Papua New Guinea

This finely carved old Gope Board is from the Era People in the Wapo Creek Area in the Papuan Gulf on the South Coast of Papua New Guinea.

Gope also called “Spirit Boards” are the embodiment of powerful spirits that represent each clan, no two Gope boards are the same, Gope Boards such as this one represent and serve as a dwelling place for an individual imunu spirit. In the past, the primary focus of religious and artistic life in the region was on powerful spirits (imunu). Each imunu typically was associated with a specific location in the landscape, rivers, or sea, and was linked to the specific clan within whose territory it dwelt.

Gope Boards were sometimes made from the sides of old canoes which provide a ready-made flat shape to carve the Gope boards from.
This Gope Board shows the genius of the artist, he was not constrained by the size or the shape of the wood, the powerful face and abstract body both work to the great visual effect.

In pre-European contact times, the Papuan Gulf people made huge ceremonial houses with peaked roofs called Ravi, this is where the Gope Spirit Boards and other types of ceremonial objects were kept safe & secret from the uninitiated. Gope boards were often kept on shrines that had boars’ skulls and human skulls from headhunting placed around them on racks.

The Papuan Gulf people had complex ceremonial cycles that took sometimes a decade to complete. There are many distinct art styles in the Papuan Gulf stretching from the Elema area in the east to the Bamu area in the west and they are also neighbors of the Gogodala & Marind Anim people who live on both sides of the border that splits the island between Papua New Guinea and West Papua Indonesia.

Provenance: Old Collection & The Todd Barlin Collection of Oceanic & Papua New Guinea Art

See my new EXHIBITIONS GALLERY  showing the Museums and Art Galleries Exhibitions that I provided artworks for over the past 40 years. There is the link to the article about my artworks published in the prestigious Louvre Magazine in 1996

I have artwork for Museums and art Galleries but also for collectors at every stage of their collecting. I want to encourage people to explore the fine art of New Guinea & West Papua and the Pacific Islands and to be able to see and touch the artworks in a relaxed and friendly manner in my Sydney Gallery. I would like to invite you to visit my gallery and see the artworks in person and also look at my website www.oceanicartsaustralia.com where there are many Galleries & Sub Galleries to explore.

My Gallery of nearly 40 years is the last physical gallery in Sydney that specializes in New Guinea and Oceanic Art.  Sydney is very close to New Guinea & the Pacific Islands where all of these amazing artworks came from, Australia’s closest neighbours.

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