Malaluba Gumana with Djirrirra Wunungmurra and Saskia Havekes (Grandiflora)
An exhibition celebrating the beauty and deep significance of flora.
10 September to 8 October 2011
Presented with Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, Australia. http://www.yirrkala.com/
Malaluba Gumana and Djirrirra Wunungmurra are central to the rise and strength of Yolgnu women artists. They live in neighbouring houses in the tiny homeland of Gangan in the Blue Mud Bay region in Northeast Arnhem Land.
In the vast Top End, rrarrandharr, from August to October, is the dry season. Fish are fat and hungry and trees fruit. In Sydney, flowers herald the six seasons, now in transition from gossamer wattle to the waratah.
Paintings and larrakitj (memorial poles) by Malaluba Gumana and Djirrirra Wunungmurra represent their place, its six spectacular seasons, its ancestral story and, of course, carry each artist’s personal history. Saskia Havekes of Grandiflora is one of Australia's most creative florists, known for her sculptural seasonal tributes. Her arrangement welcomes these metaphysically inclined botanical paintings to Kings Cross.
Malaluba Gumana reveals the rainbow's poetry and the energy created by the unpredictable movement of Wititj as the figure and ground shift and change. Wititj controls life's most precious resource — the waters, and the tension between replenishment and scarcity.
|
Djirrirra Wunungmurra's minimal larrakitj illustrate yukuwa, the yam, and one of the names of the artist — intended almost as a self-portrait. Yukuwa’s annual reappearance is a metaphor for increase and renewal. They speak of the Yukuwa Ceremony that renews Yirritja moiety clans, the emanating tendrils suggesting the binding kinship lines.
Malaluba Gumana and Djirrirra Wunungmurra contributed to the installation Larrakitj, Yolngu Artists for the Museum of Contemporary Art for the Sydney Biennale of Sydney 2010, (one of the most important collections of memorial poles, assembled for the Kerry Stokes Collection in Perth).
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
||
Djirrirra Wunungmurra, Yukuwa, 2010. Larrakitj, 200 cm |
Installation view Rite of Spring, 2011. |
Malaluba Gumana, Dhatam, 2010. Larrakitj, 162 cm |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Malaluba Gumana, Waterlily and Filesnakes, 2007. Natural ochre on bark, 114 x 37 cm (3107A) |
Malaluba Gumana, Dhatam (waterlily and rainbow), 2010. 128 x 52 cm. (3920Sb) |
Malaluba Gumana, Dhatam, 2010. 95 x 26 cm (3937W) | Malaluba Gumana, Dhatam, 2010. 118 x 34 cm (3943Y) |
Malaluba Gumana, Dhatam, 2010. 143 x 43 cm (3920S) |
|
![]() |
![]() |
|
NE Arnhem Land - Homeland Centres |
Yolngu Artists, Larrakitj, installation view Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Biennale 2010, includes Malaluba Gumana and Djirrirra Wunumurra. Kerry Stokes Collection. | Djirrirra Wunungmurra, Billabong, Larrakitj, 2010. Detail (3980E) |
|
![]() |
![]() |
||
Installation view, Cross Art Projects, 2011. | Installation view, Cross Art Projects, 2011. |
Installation view, Cross Art Projects, 2011. |
Saskia Havekes (Grandiflora): In Sydney flowers are now in transition from gossamer wattle to the waratah. Saskia has created a sculptural seasonal tribute for the exhibition. Saskia Havekes and Gary Heery’s Grandiflora Celebration (Penguin, 2011), documents her extraordinary floral specimens. http://grandiflora.net/GrandifloraCelebrations