Marshella Nanguwerr, Birlmu or Namarnkorl (Barramundi), 86x36cm
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- Details
- Artwork
- Artist
- Art Centre
- Aboriginal Artist - Marshella Nanguwerr
- Community - Maningrida
- Homeland - Kurrurldur
- Aboriginal Art Centre - Maningrdia Arts
- Catalogue number - 1394-23
- Materials - Earth pigments on stringybark
- Size(cm) - H86 W36 D2 (irregular)
- Orientation - As displayed
- Postage variant - Delivered ready to hang with a metal mount on the reverse
It is well known that Aboriginal art often depicts images of sacred totems or dreamings of Aboriginal culture. However, the world of the non-sacred also provides a rich source of subject matter for Aboriginal art. Much of the rock art of Western Arnhem Land, for example, features secular topics such as common food animals and plants, depicted because of their economic importance but also merely because of their existence in the environment. The artist has painted 'birlmu' or 'namarnkorl' (Barramundi [Lates calcarifer]). During the dry season, the barramundi is an important food source for inland Aboriginal people. These fish are caught throughout the artist’s clan estate, either in fish traps woven from pandanus or sedge grass, or else hunted with spears and fishing lines in billabongs and streams where they shelter from the sun under fallen logs or amongst the leaves of water plants.
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An art movement that is striking, political and enduring: this is what contemporary artists in Maningrida and the surrounding homelands have built, powered by their ancestral connections to country and djang.
Ways of learning and schools of art in Arnhem Land are based around a system of passing knowledge and information on to others. The art here has its genesis in body design, rock art and cultural practices, in concert with more than 50 years of collaborations, travel and political action to retain ownership of country. Values and law are expressed through language, imagery, manikay (song), bunggul (dance), doloppo bim (bark painting), sculptures, and kun-madj (weaving) – the arts.
The artists’ transformation of djang into contemporary artistic expression has intrigued people around the world: art curators and collectors, and stars including Yoko Ono, Jane Campion, David Attenborough and Elton John. Pablo Picasso said of Yirawala’s paintings, ‘This is what I’ve been trying to achieve all my life.’
Yirawala (c.1897–1976) was a legendary Kuninjku leader, artist, land-rights activist and teacher, and his artwork was the first of any Indigenous artist to be collected by the National Gallery of Australia as part of a policy to represent in depth the most significant figures in Australian art.
Maningrida Arts & Culture is based on Kunibídji country in Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory. The area where artists live encompasses 7,000 square kilometres of land and sea, and over 100 clan estates, where people speak more than 12 distinct languages. Aboriginal people in this region are still on country, surviving and resilient because their country is the centre of their epistemology, their belief system, culture – djang.
Artists’ works from the larger Maningrida region can be seen in collections and institutions around the world. We work with museums, contemporary galleries and high-end retailers both nationally and internationally on projects throughout the year.
Text courtesy: Maningrida Arts and Culture
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