Following a recent visit to Yirrkala in North-Eastern Arnhem Land, Tim Melville is proud to present a group show of artworks on bark, board and aluminium by seven women from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre.
‘Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka’ takes its name from Yolŋu Matha (the language of the Yolŋu people). In English, ‘Buku-Larrŋgay’ means ‘the feeling on your face as it is struck by the first rays of the sun’, while ‘Mulka’ means ‘a sacred but public ceremony’.
Yolŋu artists are known for their mastery of the medium of bark which is harvested in sheets from Stringybark trees during the wet season. Moreover, since the late 1990s the defining element of Yolŋu art has been a continuous and daring process of innovation within the discipline of Yolŋu law.
It could be argued that the most significant innovation has been the relaxation of cultural restrictions placed upon women with regard to their painting of sacred art.
This cultural change was spearheaded in the 1970s by Dhuwarrwarr Marika and we are especially pleased to be able to include her works in this exhibition. Dhuwarrwarr was the first woman to paint in traditional Yolŋu style and also (coincidentally) a midwife who helped birth several of her fellow artists in this show.
The Art Centre Director, Will Stubbs, writes in the accompanying catalogue essay:
“Each of these seven women embody the shift from being proscribed from painting to (now) being celebrated. Stylistically they share little in common beyond their reference to Yolŋu iconography and Yolŋu worldview. But what they do share is their representation of the positive, optimistic, forward-looking, courageous response of Yolŋu to historical pressures presented by the dominating outsiders.”
