Golwirr Marika, Rulyapa, 80x32cm Bark

• Aboriginal Artist - Golwirr Marika
• Community - Yirkala
• Homeland - Yilpara
• Aboriginal Art Centre - Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre
• Art centre catalogue number - 2381/17
• Materials - Earth pigments on Stringybark
• Size(cm) - H80 W32 D1  (irregular shape)
• Postage variants - Artwork posted flat and ready to hang with a metal mount for stability
• Orientation - Wired to hang as displayed though OK to hang horizontally on the metal support frame

This miny'tji represents Rulyapa, the rough saltwater country between Nhulunbuy and the large island of Dhambaliya (Bremer Island), ballooning up from the secret depths, around the sacred rock Manhala, which can be a manifestation of Daymirri. 

Daymirri is an enigmatic giant sea being (perhaps a whale shark) that according to Rirratji'u and Djambarrpuy'u clan manikay (sacred song) pertains to the saltwater country close to Yirrkala. 

The dome-shaped rock Manhala exposes itself at the low tide, above the ra (tide marks), bleached white, a patina of brine and weather. Manhala is one of many names given to the rock. Djambarrpuy'u and Rirratji'u clans have many 'deep' names that are intoned by the ritual specialists at the culmination of appropriate ceremony. 

The sea surrounding the rock, its tidal movements, differing states and the effect it had on Yolgnu visiting this site in Ancestral times is all recorded in the sacred song. As are all the totemic species of marine life that have these ancestral connections to the Rirratji'u and Djambarrpuyu. 

Often painted in this design is Daymirri the whale, Balpa the rock cod, Djumbarr the red emperor, Garrarrpa, the king brown snake and Mutjalanydjal, the dolphin. All of these things and all of their meanings are implied simply by the presence of the miny'tji (sacred clan design) for the water. It's not just Manhala and the power associated with deep-seated knowledge that makes this area both sacred and dangerous to those entering without authority. There are three other rocks in the area of same qualities but these ones; Wakwakbuy, Mul'uwuy and Dharrpawuy, are submerged.

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

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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