Podcasts about John Mawurndjul

In this episode, Adam and Budi speak with First Nations Indigenous artist Tiriki Onus. Tiriki Onus is the Senior Lecturer and Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, Associate Dean (Indigenous) and Deputy Dean (Place) for the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Melbourne University.Tiriki graduated from the VCA in 2011 with a Bachelor of Music Performance (Voice). He has performed at dozens of venues around Australia, as well as a series of engagements during his participation in Kwaya's cross-cultural connections journey to Uganda in 2012. He spent ten years as a successful visual artist prior to attending the VCA, with work exhibited around Australia in venues such as Cooee Gallery, Bondi Beach, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, and the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Melbourne Museum, Melbourne, and Old Parliament House, Canberra. He has also worked as an art curator, conservator, theatre set producer, university lecturer, spokesman, and panelist.  He was the Australian curator of the >: John Mawurndjul exhibition for Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland; a project which ran from 2003 to 2005. Tiriki received the Harold Blair Opera Scholarship in 2012 and 2013 and became the University's inaugural Hutchinson Indigenous Fellow in 2014. He is currently undertaking his Ph.D., Biganga: Mapping Paths Back to Knowing, focusing on the revival of ancient technologies and cultural safety through the medium of Possum Cloak making.Mentioned in this episode:Yorta Yorta CountryDja Dja WarrungBlakfullaBunurongBill OnusMoomba FestivalAblazeTo submit a question, please visit http://www.speakpipe.com/theatreofothers for voice recording or submit an email to podcast@theatreofothers.com Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwiseIf you enjoyed this week´s podcast, we´d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest in it and make it even better Music credit: https://www.purple-planet.comAdditional compositions by @jack_burmeisterSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/theatreofothers)

John Mawurndjul is a Kuninjku bark painter and sculptor and one of Australia's most successful contemporary artists. Take a listen to director of the MCA Elizabeth Ann Macgregor talk about his life and work in this week's lesson.

John Mawurndjul is a Kuninjku bark painter and sculptor and one of Australia’s most successful contemporary artists. Take a listen to director of the MCA Elizabeth Ann Macgregor talk about his life and work in this week's lesson.

John Mawurndjul is a Kuninjku bark painter and sculptor and one of Australia’s most successful contemporary artists. Take a listen to director of the MCA Elizabeth Ann Macgregor talk about his life and work in this week's lesson.

Thank you for listening to this Lunchtime Talk, produced by the Art Gallery of South Australia. In this live recording, Project Officer, Gloria Strzelecki shares her insights on the work of John Mawurndjul in the exhibition 'John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new'. For further information visit www.agsa.sa.gov.au Photo: Nat Rogers

Thank you for listening to this Lunchtime Talk, produced by the Art Gallery of South Australia. In this live recording, The Art Gallery’s Assistant Director, Artistic Programs, Lisa Slade, provides an introduction to recurring themes in the work of John Mawurndjul in the exhibition John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new. For further information visit www.agsa.sa.gov.au image: installation view: John Mawurndjul: I am the old and the new, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2018, photo: Morgan Sette.

Explore Indigenous artistic and curatorial concepts of the spaces we inhabit, and the cultural understandings that influence how we perceive the void.

Explore Indigenous artistic and curatorial concepts of the spaces we inhabit, and the cultural understandings that influence how we perceive the void.

Sancintya Mohini Simpson works on an Indian miniature painting in studio, Bertie Blackman and curator Kendrah Morgan remember painter Charles Blackman and his works, Sebastian Smee reviews John Mawurndjul: I Am the Old and the New at the MCA

Sancintya Mohini Simpson works on an Indian miniature painting in studio, Bertie Blackman and curator Kendrah Morgan remember painter Charles Blackman and his works, Sebastian Smee reviews John Mawurndjul: I Am the Old and the New at the MCA

John Mawurndjil AM, Kuninjku (Eastern Kunwinjku) people (1952), Rainbow Serpent (Ngalyod) with female mimi spirit 1984. Painting, Bark painting, natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark, 123.5 h x 74.0 w cm. Purchased 1984 © John Mawurndjul. Licensed by Viscopy.

John Mawurndjil AM, Kuninjku (Eastern Kunwinjku) people (1952), Lorrkon 2004. Sculpture, natural earth pigments and PVA fixative on wood, 243.0 h x 20.0 w 56.8 diameter cm. Purchased 2005 © John Mawurndjul, courtesy Maningrida Arts and Culture.

John Mawurndjul is one of the most experimental bark painters in Arnhem Land. Mawurndjul grew up in his country near Mumeka on the Mann River. He lived for a considerable time in the newly established Aboriginal town of Maningrida in the 1960s, but returned to Mumeka from 1972. Today he moves regularly between Maningrida and his outstation at Milmilngkan, south of Maningrida. He was taught to paint by his father, Anchor Kulunba, his brother Jimmy Njiminjuma and his uncle Peter Marralwanga. Mawurndjul's early work of the late 1970s reveals his meticulous attention to detail and very fine rarrk (crosshatching) technique. Many of his early works are relatively small images of the rainbow serpent Ngalyod in snake-like form, or of the yawkyawk, mermaid-like creatures that were devoured by Ngalyod in Mawurndjul's clan lands. However, in the late 1980s Mawurndjul began to produce larger paintings of this subject, which evoked the powerful twists and turns of the body of Ngalyod. The iridescent rarrk across Ngalyod's body captures the almost electric, radiating power of this being. In other paintings, Mawurndjul experimented with complex interactions of figurative forms, particularly in depictions of Ngalyod involved in the act of biting or swallowing the yawkyawk. Sometimes Mawurndjul shows the dismembered bodies, and at other times they may be merging together. In essence, the imagery of the rainbow serpent swallowing these other beings is a reference to site creation, of the yawkyawk joining with Ngalyod inside the earth and investing it with their everlasting power. More recently, Mawurndjul has emphasised the geometric aesthetic in Kuninjku painting. He has produced works that comprise grids of crosshatching with circles representing waterholes enmeshed in the grid. These paintings relate to Mardayin body paintings, and focus attention upon the abstract representation of features of the associated landscape. In the context of the Mardayin ceremony, these geometric body designs are said to physically connect initiates to the sacred power of the ancestral beings who made their clan lands. Mawurndjul has said that he is not simply reproducing ceremonial designs in works such as 'Mardayin ceremony', 2000, but that he is also creating new forms of patterning and composition. Mawurndjul has travelled the world with his art, and studied collections of early bark painting in cities as far afield as Paris. Through his art, Mawurndjul draws upon and extends Kuninjku traditions to promote a wider understanding of his culture. Luke Taylor in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004 © Art Gallery of New South Wales

John Mawurndjul is one of the most experimental bark painters in Arnhem Land. Mawurndjul grew up in his country near Mumeka on the Mann River. He lived for a considerable time in the newly established Aboriginal town of Maningrida in the 1960s, but returned to Mumeka from 1972. Today he moves regularly between Maningrida and his outstation at Milmilngkan, south of Maningrida. He was taught to paint by his father, Anchor Kulunba, his brother Jimmy Njiminjuma and his uncle Peter Marralwanga. Mawurndjul's early work of the late 1970s reveals his meticulous attention to detail and very fine rarrk (crosshatching) technique. Many of his early works are relatively small images of the rainbow serpent Ngalyod in snake-like form, or of the yawkyawk, mermaid-like creatures that were devoured by Ngalyod in Mawurndjul's clan lands. However, in the late 1980s Mawurndjul began to produce larger paintings of this subject, which evoked the powerful twists and turns of the body of Ngalyod. The iridescent rarrk across Ngalyod's body captures the almost electric, radiating power of this being. In other paintings, Mawurndjul experimented with complex interactions of figurative forms, particularly in depictions of Ngalyod involved in the act of biting or swallowing the yawkyawk. Sometimes Mawurndjul shows the dismembered bodies, and at other times they may be merging together. In essence, the imagery of the rainbow serpent swallowing these other beings is a reference to site creation, of the yawkyawk joining with Ngalyod inside the earth and investing it with their everlasting power. More recently, Mawurndjul has emphasised the geometric aesthetic in Kuninjku painting. He has produced works that comprise grids of crosshatching with circles representing waterholes enmeshed in the grid. These paintings relate to Mardayin body paintings, and focus attention upon the abstract representation of features of the associated landscape. In the context of the Mardayin ceremony, these geometric body designs are said to physically connect initiates to the sacred power of the ancestral beings who made their clan lands. Mawurndjul has said that he is not simply reproducing ceremonial designs in works such as 'Mardayin ceremony', 2000, but that he is also creating new forms of patterning and composition. Mawurndjul has travelled the world with his art, and studied collections of early bark painting in cities as far afield as Paris. Through his art, Mawurndjul draws upon and extends Kuninjku traditions to promote a wider understanding of his culture. Luke Taylor in 'Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia', Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004 © Art Gallery of New South Wales

John MAWURNDJUL, Mardayin design at Dilebang 2006, painting, bark painting, natural earth pigments on stringybark, 200.0 (h) x 47.0 (w) cm, Collection of the National Gallery of Australia, © John Mawurndjul, courtesy Maningrida Arts & Culture