Exhibition Insight... Mother and Child
Gunybi Ganambarr, Gängän, 2017. Photo: courtesy of Gunybi Ganambarr and Buku Larrnggay Arts Centre.
Mother and Child
Gunybi Ganambarr
Words by Margaret Hancock Davis.
Margaret is Senior Curator at JamFactory.
Gunybi Ganambarr is of the Dhuwa moiety and the Ngaymil clan of North East Arnhem Land. Mentored by many of the master artists of the region Ganambarr began his artistic career in painting on bark and the Larrakitj. Ganambarr is a known innovator, pushing his practice to create new forms of cultural expression that maintain the greatest of respect for the law and for the stories passed down from one generation to the next.
It 2006 Ganambarr brought the first ever, incised bark painting into the Buku Larrnggay Arts Centre. It was an original form of practice and since this time he has continued to created an array of innovative works including double sided barks, heavily sculpted poles, incised barks, ironwood sculpture, inserting sculptures into poles and beautifully etched metals forms.
As an innovator, Ganambarr has not been constrained by traditional materials, rather he translates his sacred designs on an array of substrates including steel water tanks, insulation and colourbond panels, alu board, as well as detritus from the mining industry that scars his homeland. Working with found and discarded materials, such as rubber from the local bauxite mine’s 18.7 km conveyor belt, Ganambarr is able to hold true to the long-term structure from Buku elders ‘If you are going to paint the land use the land’.
This exhibition presents a curated selection of Ganambarr’s artworks alongside new works created specifically for Tarnanthi through a series of residencies held within JamFactory’s studios. During his residency, Ganambarr worked closely with Stephen Anthony, Head of JamFactory Furniture Studio, who presented new timbers such as River Red Gum for carving as well as sand blasting techniques for Ganambarr’s to use in his mark making repertoire. Mother and Child, 2019, is a work that connects opposing materials as one, reflecting the meeting of cultures and the binary yet interrelated nature of the moieties in Yolngu culture. Ganambarr has also explored industrial process with JamFactory’s Metal Studio producing the striking and rippling steel artwork Lurryun, 2019. This artwork has travelled extensively throughout its production. From Yirrkala, Adelaide, Sydney and back to Adelaide, a series of incremental processes have come together to create this work.
Gunybi Ganambarr. Photo: Saul Steed
In Yirrkala, Ganambarr drew the flowing ‘cartoon’ design on a large piece of textile. The rippling surface of the undulating textile complementing the rhythmic movement of Ganambarr’s design, a design that references water bubbling up from underground and the movement of waterweeds within this current.
On arrival in Adelaide the textile ‘cartoon’ was photographed and digital files were created. These files were then sent to a chemical etcher in Sydney, who etched Ganambarr’s design on scintillating mirror steel. Returning to Adelaide the steel sheet was then manipulated at a metal fabricator to recreate the soft forms of the textile cartoon drawn in Yirrkala. The result is an artwork that shimmers, reflecting the country from where the work came.
As Kimberley Moulton writing in the Tarnanthi 2019 catalogue notes: ‘This project is a testament to Gunybi’s innovative approach to his practice as well as to the support of Tarnanthi and JamFactory. Through this collaboration, this ambitious project has produced works with a powerful message – that First Peoples’ art can be anything imagined and that there will always be new forms of telling and passing on old ways.”i
Gunybi Ganambarr, Buyku, 2016.
Additional information about the artworks on display:
Buyku, 2016
repurposed conveyor belt
2260 x 915
Gängän, 2017
enamel paint, aluminium composite board
1820 x 1640
A sacred expanse of water behind the Gangan outstation where these works were produced is referred to as Gulutji. The initial activities of Barama the great Ancestral Being for the Yirritja moiety took place here. Travelling from the seaside at Blue Mud Bay he emerged from the waters of Gulutji. Council was held with ‘Disciple’ Ancestors and Yirritja Law was ‘written’.
From this place the Yirritja (the Yirritja moiety together with the Dhuwa moiety forms a duality system that keeps all past, present and future life in balance) nation spread as it traversed its country establishing clan estates and governing policy including language, ceremonial ritual and miny’tji (signature of sacred design of event and place - this word describes the patterns employed in these works).
One of the metaphorical overviews of these works are the union between the different subgroups of the artist’s mother’s Dhalwangu clan in the ancestral cycle of regular fishtrap ceremonies they join together in celebrating. The last one of these was five years ago. These gatherings are ceremonial but also social and educational.
The sacred diamond design generally refers to the waters around Gangan but here are now triangles which show the structure of the fishtrap made during Mirrawarr (early Dry Season) with Rangan (paperbark) and wooden stakes. This is the Buyku or fishtrap area which is ‘company’ land (ie. shared by all the people who live by/sing the river). The Dhalwangu and allied groups who participate in this song cycle and fishing activity are hunting Baypinga (Saratoga) as does the Gany’tjurr (Reef Heron) which they identify with as the archetypal Yirritja hunter.
Gunybi Ganambarr, Lurryun, 2019.
Gunybi Ganambarr, Naymil font, 2019
Naymil font, 2019
aluminium composite board
1550 x 1480
Därra, 2019
repurposed colourbond cladding
1460 x 870
Lurryun, 2019
acid etched and formed steel
2400 x 1200
Mother and Child, 2019
River Red Gum, steel
1400x 1100 x 480
These works identifies the reservoirs of the Naymil/Datiwuy clan. Nalkan is an area on Naymil land and sea between the Gurrumuru and Cato Rivers that run into the Arnhem Bay. Within this area is another watercourse that leads up into a sacred area of a freshwater spring or Milngurr with special qualities called Balawurru. Dhangultji or Brolga are dancing here.
Here Djanda the sacred goanna also swim in the lagoon created by the spring, their actions as they swim causing patterns to be made on the surface that is covered by the totemic waterweed Darra. This plant forms floating forests in only a few very sacred locations. It is a broad leaf emergent plant that sits within the water and flowers in September with a vibrant yellow flower mass. Similarly to the action of Djanda, the force of the water surging from under the ground ripples the surface. Lurryun is a Yolngu word for the rippling flow of water.
Dhangultji or Guldurrku (Brolga) inhabit such floodplains in huge numbers during the late Dry. They drink from subterranean springs which emerge in the vast flat plains. A safe place to rest, mate and nest. In their avian form they are a manifestation of the Djang’kawu Sisters’ party which travel throughout the Eastern top end, shape shifting and giving birth to the various clans of the Dhuwa moiety. In this case the Naymil.
Others inhabit these waters. Warrukay or Murrukula the Barracuda, the power totem for the Naymil. It spends most of its time in the salt waters. At certain times Warrukay will make its way up to Balawurru bringing the ‘contamination’ of muddied water with it. This has connotations of fertility. It is a place of fertility. Souls of Naymil are both delivered to and from this point between worlds real and spiritual. As the sacred songs used in mortuary are cyclic, narrating the Ancestral Events of the original Creator Beings, so is the journey of the Yolngu soul. This place is also shared by Dhudi Djapu clan.
**** Additional artwork information has been reproduced courtesy of Gunybi Ganambarr and Buku Larrnggay Arts Centre.
i Moulton, K, ‘Mother and Child, Gunybi Ganambarr’ Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2019
CURATOR:
Margaret Hancock Davis and Kade McDonald.
ESSAY:
Margaret Hancock Davis
EXHIBITOR:
Gunybi Ganambarr
MOTHER AND CHILD
GUYNBI GANAMBARR
12 October - 1 December 2019
JamFactory
Gallery One
Presented as part of Tarnanthi.