GUNYBI GANAMBARR has mainly lived and worked as an artist at Gängan, sometimes based at Dhuruputjpi or Yilpara. A ceremonial yidaki player who is sought after by elders. Accompanied the Yolngu delegations to the opening of the National Museum in Canberra 2001 and the larrakitj installation at the Sydney Opera House 2002, and played at the opening of Djambawa Marawili's exhibition in the 2006 Sydney Biennale. Gunybi has had the instinct to introduce radical new forms without offending community tolerance. He has introduced or developed novel forms such as double sided barks, heavily sculpted poles, incised barks, ironwood sculpture, inserting sculptures into poles.
Read MoreGunybi is an energetic participant in ceremonial life who is always cheerful with a robust sense of humour. He is a natural leader amongst his peers. His vigorous zest for life sees him throw himself into whatever activity he is engaged in. He is married to Lamangirra Marawili a daughter of Djambawa Marawili.
In 2011 Gunybi won the West Australian Indigenous Art Award. At this time The Australian wrote; "When Ganambarr was a young man, senior Yolngu artists recognized his ability and ensured he had the skills and knowledge to create the extraordinary bark paintings on show. These wonderfully complex and technically brilliant barks sit alongside new works that exploit the potential of materials found around mining sites. Using the layered webs of lines fundamental to traditional Yolngu painting and the incising of lines that characterizes Yolngu carving, he has reclaimed the insulation panels and rubber belts discarded by miners and transformed them into panels that combine traditional image-making with an enhanced sense of visual depth and tangible space. Ganambarr's work epitomizes the innovative and exploratory nature of contemporary Aboriginal arts practice and not surprisingly the judges awarded him the $50,000 main prize."
