Blue Mountains City Art Gallery is presenting a survey of works by one of Australia's leading contemporary artists - master bark painter John Mawurndjul.
Developed and co- presented by the MCA and Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), in association with Maningrida Arts & Culture, this landmark touring exhibition includes over 50 works, spanning 40 years of the artist's practice.
Mawurndjul is celebrated for his mastery of rarrk (cross-hatching) and his depiction of djang (sacred sites), a tradition shared by generations of Kuninjku artists. Bark paintings and sculptures drawn from private and public collections across the world tell the stories of Kuninjku culture and the significant locations surrounding the artist's home in central north Arnhem Land.
Born in 1952, Mawurndjul lives and works in Milmilngkan in western Arnhem Land and Maningrida in central north Arnhem Land. Since his first exhibition in 1980, he has become one of Australia's most widely recognised artists.
In 1989 his work was included in the ground-breaking exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou and Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris, and his works have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Australia, America, Germany and Japan. He was the recipient of the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award in 2003, has received the Bark Painting Award at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory four times, and in 2010 was awarded an Order of Australia. In 2018 he received the highly prestigious Red Ochre Award at the Australia Council for the Arts, National Indigenous Art Awards, for his outstanding lifetime achievement in the arts.
The collections of the MCA and Art Gallery of South Australia form the genesis of the exhibition. Two barks - Nawarramulmul (Shooting Star Spirit) and Ngalyod (Female Rainbow Serpent) (both 1988) were the first artworks accessioned into the newly-incorporated MCA Collection in 1989; and Namanjwarre, Saltwater Crocodile (also from 1988) is a cornerstone piece from the Art Gallery of South Australia Collection, representing a watershed moment in the evolution of the artist's aesthetic.
Mawurndjul led curatorial decisions and assisted in selecting the most significant artworks from his career. He was instrumental in determining the exhibition structure, which is grouped by places - or kunred - then animals and spirits, mimih, lorrkkon and etchings.
The concept of kunred informs the artist's practice, both in the materials used such as the bark of the tree, natural earth pigments and charcoal, and in the representation of ideas critical to an understanding of Kuninjku culture.
Language is an important component of this presentation, with bilingual texts embedded throughout the exhibition design - from the didactics and labels available in Kuninjku, to translated texts featured in the catalogue and on the website.
MCA Director, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE said: 'This exhibition will be a revelation. It recognises John Mawurndjul as one of Australia's most important artists, and his contribution to the history of art and painting. The MCA has had a long-standing relationship with the artist, and we are very proud to have collaborated with the Art Gallery of South Australia to develop this landmark exhibition.'
Art Gallery of South Australia and MCA curators Nici Cumpston, Dr Lisa Slade, Natasha Bullock and Clothilde Bullen added: 'This artist-led exhibition has been an extraordinary journey across country and culture, with multiple voices working closely together to support and facilitate the artist's vision. We hope that through the beauty of Mawurndjul's art, and the extensive research that went into this exhibition, audiences will gain a deep understanding of the living history and culture of the Kuninjku people and their country.'
John (Balang) Mawurndjul AM was born near Mumeka on the Mann River in 1952, an important camping site for members of the Kurulk clan. The site lies some 50 kilometres south of Maningrida, a remote community in central north Arnhem Land, approximately 500 kilometres east of Darwin in the Northern Territory.
Painting on bark is a relatively recent phenomenon, adapted from body painting. Mawurndjul was initially taught to paint by his father, the esteemed painter and weaver Anchor Kulunba, his uncle Peter Marralwanga, and elder brother Jimmy Njiminjuma. He has mastered the skill of bark painting over four decades of practice. His early explorations on bark in the late 1970s yielded to the conventions of bark painting at that time: figurative work depicting images of the Ngalyod (an ancestral Rainbow Serpent), Namarrkon (the female lightning spirit) and depictions of the rich resources found on his country - turtles, fish (particularly the Saratoga, barramundi and Grunter), crocodile and other creatures.
Mawurndjul's work has been included in exhibitions since 1980. In 1988, Mawurndjul won the Rothman's Foundation Award for best painting at the 5th annual National Aboriginal Art Awards at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and was included in the group exhibition Dreamings, in New York that same year. The following year, his work was included in the landmark exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou and Grande Halle de la Villete in Paris, which played an important role in changing the way his work was appreciated.
In 1991 Mawurndjul held his first solo show at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne. During the 1990s, his work began to shift in style, and he started to address the significant sites of his custodial country. The artist also began to make a concentrated body of sculptural work, including the hollow log coffins, or lorrkkon, and representations of the mimih spirit beings. More recently, Mawurndjul's practice has developed to reflect in more detail the Mardayin ceremony; shimmering geometric grids of rarrk (cross-hatching), and djang (a sacred site or totemic emblem) in a complete mastery of bark painting that borders on abstraction.
Mawurndjul exhibited his work in Crossroads in Japan in 1992, in the Sydney Biennale in 2000, and in Aratjara: Art of the First Australians in Germany and the UK and In the Heart of Arnhem Land in France in 2001. In 2004, his work was included in the landmark survey exhibition Crossing Country, the Alchemy of Western Arnhem Land, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and in 2005 was honoured with a major retrospective of his work at the Musee Jean Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland. Mawurndjul created work for the Musee du Quai Branly's Australian Indigenous Art Commission in 2004, being one of only eight Aboriginal artists included.
He was the recipient of the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award in 2003, and has been awarded the Bark Painting Award at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in 1988, 1999, 2002 and 2016. In 2018, he was awarded the highly prestigious Red Ochre Award at the Australia Council for the Arts, National Indigenous Art Awards, for his outstanding lifetime achievement in the arts.
The exhibition is on in the Cultural Centre, Katoomba, until January 19.
