Ŋoŋu Ganambarr, Limin, 95x41cm Bark

The entire painting has been covered with the Wangurri clan design for an area of saltwater covering the country called Wulwala - close to what is known as Cape Wilberforce. Here the water is flat and calm creating a shimmer on the horizon. This condition of saltwater is called Gunbirrk, then to emphasise his knowledge as a senior man amongst the ranks of traditional lawmen he intoned the deeper names for the same area; Rakurrurru Madawuluwu Riŋgurram Mawalam Dhalatj Rakuna. The triangular shapes are the sunset striking the late Dry season Thunderheads on the horizon referencing the sails of the Macassan visitors departing to return again. Hidden under this water is the rock Dhukurrurra, its foundation cemented into the sea bed as is the totem giant clam Dhalimbu. At the base of this work are Wangurri totemic beings associated with the ocean floor and this foundation. They are depicted adorned with the sacred design of the sacred water that surrounds them as well as the triangular design for the clouds on the horizons that connect this place with others associated with the clans sharing aspects of Wangurri lore. The painting can also be seen as a cross section through this part of the ocean. In the songs Dhalimbu sits firm at the bottom with the turtle Malarrka having the job of a caretaker at this site as does Manda the octopus , then Madi the crayfish and Limin the squid (featured iconography). Shells of the cuttlefish floating on the surface of the water are on another level the Wangurri Yothu (child/unborn) held in the reservoir of Wangurri soul, held safely in the jaws of the sacred. In viewing the painting this way the state of the water changes from that of salt to fresh as the intimate knowledge the land owners have with their estates proclaim subterranean rivers of freshwater from the land, surface under sea at this place Wulwala. So from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the sea and up to the stratosphere all is connected and part of the cycle through which the life force pulses through infinity. "This is very important to my people - you steal fish or camping in this area without permission. It's mine that area - I run the (sacred) business."

In many ways, the harvesting and material production to create bark paintings is an art in itself. The bark is stripped from Eucalyptus stringybark. It is generally harvested from the tree during the wet season. Two horizontal slices and a single vertical slice are made into the tree, and the bark is carefully peeled off. The smooth inner bark is kept and placed in a fire. After firing, the bark is flattened and weighted to dry flat. Once dry, the bark becomes a rigid surface and is ready to paint upon.

Djawakan Marika, Yilpirr Wanambi, Wukun Wanambi and Nambatj Munu+ïgurr Harvesting stringybark for artists Photo credit: David Wickens

Wanapa Munu+ïgurr, Yilpirr Wanambi and Wukun Wanambi harvesting stringybark. Photo credit: David Wickens

Wanapa and Nambatj Munu+ïgurr firing a bark to start the flattening process. Photo credit: David Wickens

Arnhem Land paintings are characterised by the use of fine crosshatched patterns of clan designs that carry ancestral power: the crosshatched patterns, known as rarrk in the west and miny’tji in the east, produce an optical brilliance reflecting the presence of ancestral forces.

These patterns are composed of layers of fine lines, laid onto the surface of the bark using a short-handled brush of human hair, just as they are painted onto the body for ceremony.

Rerrkiwaŋa Munuŋgurr painting her husbands design Gumatj fire or Gurtha. Photo credit: Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre

The artist’s palette consists of red and yellow ochres of varying intensity and hues, from flat to lustrous, as well as charcoal and white clay(pictured above). Pigments that were once mixed with natural binders such as egg yolk have, since the 1960s, been combined with water-soluble wood glues.

Naminapu Maymuru White collecting gapan white clay used for painting. Photo credit: Edwina Circuitt

Details currently unavailable

Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre is the Indigenous community-controlled art centre of Northeast Arnhem Land. Located in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community on the north-eastern tip of the Top End of the Northern Territory, approximately 700km east of Darwin. Our primarily Yolŋu (Aboriginal) staff of around twenty services Yirrkala and the approximately twenty-five homeland centres in the radius of 200km.

In the 1960’s, Narritjin Maymuru set up his own beachfront gallery from which he sold art that now graces many major museums and private collections. He is counted among the art centre’s main inspirations and founders, and his picture hangs in the museum. His vision of Yolŋu-owned business to sell Yolŋu art that started with a shelter on a beach has now grown into a thriving business that exhibits and sells globally.

Buku-Larrŋgay –  “the feeling on your face as it is struck by the first rays of the sun (i.e. facing East) 

Mulka – “a sacred but public ceremony.”

In 1976, the Yolŋu artists established ‘Buku-Larrŋgay Arts’ in the old Mission health centre as an act of self-determination coinciding with the withdrawal of the Methodist Overseas Mission and the Land Rights and Homeland movements.

In 1988, a new museum was built with a Bicentenary grant and this houses a collection of works put together in the 1970s illustrating clan law and also the Message Sticks from 1935 and the Yirrkala Church Panels from 1963.

In 1996, a screen print workshop and extra gallery spaces was added to the space to provide a range of different mediums to explore. In 2007, The Mulka Project was added which houses and displays a collection of tens of thousands of historical images and films as well as creating new digital product. 

Still on the same site but in a greatly expanded premises Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre now consists of two divisions; the Yirrkala Art Centre which represents Yolŋu artists exhibiting and selling contemporary art and The Mulka Project which acts as a digital production studio and archiving centre incorporating the museum.

Text courtesy: Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre