Podcasts about kuninjku

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.

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.

Peter Marralwanga, Kuninjku (Eastern Kunwinjku) people (1916–1987), Ngal-Kunburriyaymi 1982. Painting, Bark painting, natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark, 121.5 h x 65.0 w cm. Purchased 1983 © estate of Peter Marralwanga, courtesy Maningrida Arts and Culture.

Yirawala, Kuninjku people (1895/1899-1976), Maralaitj, mother of the tribes c.1965. Painting, Bark painting, natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark, 62.0 h x 31.0 w cm. Purchased 1976 Collected by Sandra Le Brun Holmes, Sydney.

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

Yawkyawk is a word in the Kunwinjku/kunwok language of Western Arnhem Land meaning ‘young woman’ and ‘young woman spirit being’. The different groups of Kunwinjku people (one of the Eastern dialect groups call themselves Kuninjku) each have Yawkyawk mythologies, which relate to specific locations in clan estates. These mythologies are represented in bark paintings and sculptures of Yawkyawk beings. There are also a few examples of rock art images of these beings. The female water spirits Yawkyawk or Ngalkunburriyaymi are perhaps the most enigmatic of mythological themes. Sometimes compared to the European notion of mermaids, they exist as spiritual beings living in freshwater streams and rock pools, particularly those in the stone country. The spirit Yawkyawk is usually described and depicted with the tail of a fish. This the Kuninjku people sometimes call the ngalberddjenj which literally means ‘the young woman who has a tail like a fish’. They have long hair, which is associated with trailing blooms of green algae (called man-bak in Kuninjku). At times they leave their aquatic homes to walk about on dry land, particularly at night. Aboriginal people believe that in the beginning most animals were humans. During the time of the creation of landscapes and plants and animals, these ancestral heroes in human form transmutated into their animal forms via a series of various significant events now recorded as oral mythologies. The creation ancestor Yawkyawk travelled the country in human form and changed into the form of Ngalkunburriyaymi as a result of various ancestral adventures. Today the Kuninjku believe that Ngalkunburriyaymi are alive and well and living in freshwater sites in a number of sacred locations. Some features of a respective country are equated with body parts of Yawkyawk. For example a bend in a river or creek may be said to be the tail of the Yawkyawk, a billabong may be the head of the Yawkyawk, and so on. Thus different groups can be linked together by means of a shared mythology featured in the landscape, which crosscuts clan and language group boundaries. Felicity Green (ed.), Togart Contemporary Art Award (NT) 2007, exhibition catalogue, Darwin: Toga Group, 2007, p.20.

Kuninjku artists Owen Yalandja and Anniebell Marrngamarrnga have created three-dimensional representations of the same ancestral being, the yawkyawk. Yawkyawk (also known as yawk yawk and yalk yalk) are female water spirits that are often referred to within European cultures as mermaids. They are half fish, half Ancestral Being, who entice unsuspecting men beneath the water of the billabongs and lagoons, where they reside throughout Arnhem Land. In some representations they have long reed-like hair, referring to the waterweed, and are able to transform their features into that of a fish snake. They are able to morph further as they grow into adulthood, leaving their watery domicile and flying like dragonflies. Closely associated with the powerful Ancestral Being Ngalyod the Rainbow Serpent, yawkyawk are often linked with sorcery. Yalandja’s majestic, elegant carvings of Yawkyawk 2007, hewn from eucalyptus trunk, denote strength and power. The chevron design, his signature design, indicates the shimmering scales on the fish-like body of the creatures, catching the light and suggesting the inherent power within the billabong where yawkyawk reside. Yalandja, the son of renowned carver and senior Mumeka custodian Anchor Kuningbal (c. 1922–1984), was taught to carve by his father.