East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Wood, pigments, 37 cm

Provenance:
Private collection, Paris

Published:
Mark Johnson, The Kayanic Tradition, Volume I: Guardian Sculptures, Mark A. Johnson Tribal Art, Marina Del Rey, 2020, p. 59, 247

Kayanic wall masks, such as the one presented here, are reported to have been hung within funerary structures, where they functioned as protective presences associated with the dead. According to available sources, such masks were typically conceived in pairs - male and female - likely representing ancestral figures connected to the clan or community in which the shrine was situated. The present example, with its rounded contours and softly modelled features, can plausibly be identified as the female counterpart within this pairing. The form of the mouth, broad and constricted at the centre, recalls the so-called “figure-eight” motif found in certain sculptural traditions of Hawaii. This parallel, within the wider Austronesian cultural sphere, suggests a shared formal vocabulary, adapted here into a distinct local idiom.