A prominent voice in the Yolngu art scene, Australian Aboriginal artist Guruwuy Murrinyina is the last artist still painting the Djarrwark clan's sacred designs.
Read MoreGuruwuy Murrinyina was born in 1974 in Gangan, a remote riverside community in Australia's Northern Territory, into the Djarrwark, Lulmarrangu clans. Murrinyina's mother and uncle were both artists who passed down their methods and materials to the young artist.
Murrinyina's uncle, Gawirrin Gumana AO, was an influential Australian bark painter and Yolngu Elder. He shared his knowledge with Murrinyina, who started painting clan designs in 2007 and remains one of the rare Aboriginal artists committed to their preservation.
Expressing a quiet serenity, Murrinyina's bark paintings and larrakitj memorial poles draw from natural and ancestral symbols to pay homage to her Aboriginal inheritance.
Besides her uncle, Murrinyina learned from her mother, Malaluba Gumana, an artist celebrated for her attention to detail and adept mixtures of natural pigments. Murrinyina assisted her mother in painting Galpu clan imagery until Malaluba's unexpected death in 2020.
The artist abstained from painting for two years to grieve. Her later 'Marraŋu' series (2022) showed the same abundant patterns noted in her mother's work, rendered with natural pigments, and covering organic surfaces, from stringybark to board and memorial poles.
Marraŋu (8733) arranges overlapping diamond patterns like an optical illusion above a dusty coral ground. Covering a memorial pole, Marraŋu (5308-22) recalls tribal rituals with prominent diamond-shaped patterns marking the black surface like a tattooed limb.
Illustrating creation myths, other paintings by Murrinyina return to a central motif—the water lily—inspired by the ancestral site of Garrimala, a body of water near the artist's home where the creator god known as the Rainbow Serpent is said to reside.
A powerful force of nature and spirit, the deity is said to live among the lilies, causing ripples as it moves through the water.
Dhatam (Water Lilies) (2022) charts the serpent's movement through the landscape across its two panels. Petals of muted ochre are entangled with all-seeing eyes on one side; the ornate floralscape becomes unobscured with the creature's movement into the corners on the other.
Guruwuy Murrinyina's work has been exhibited worldwide. Selected exhibitions include Michael Reid, Sydney; Hugo Michell Gallery, Australia (both 2023); Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne (2022); Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney (2021); Aboriginal Signature Gallery, Brussels (2018); The Cross Art Projects, Sydney (2015); and Harvey Arts Project, U.S. (2011).
The artist lives and works in Gangan, Northern Territory, Australia.
Guruwuy Murrinyina is represented by Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne.
Elaine YJ Zheng | Ocula | 2023
