MARKING THE INFINITE CONTEMPORARY WOMEN ARTISTS FROM ABORGINAL AUSTRALIA
20 Aug – 30 Dec 2016
MARKING THE INFINITE CONTEMPORARY WOMEN ARTISTS FROM ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA
20 Aug — 30 Dec 2016
Featuring work by Nonggirrnga Marawili,
both our shared humanity and differences in
Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Yukultji Napangati,
experiencing and valuing the same planet.
Angelina Pwerle, Carlene West, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Lena Yarinkura, Gulumbu
Marking the Infinite originated at the Nevada
Yunupingu, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, and this
Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada and was
exhibition offers a glimpse into the diverse
organized by William Fox, Director, Center
contemporary art practice of Aboriginal
for Art and Environment, and Henry
Australia.
Skerritt, Curator, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. The
Hailing from remote areas across the island
exhibition is drawn from the collection of
continent, the nine artists in this exhibition
Debra and Dennis Scholl and at Newcomb
are revered matriarchs, commanding
Art Museum was coordinated by Anna
leadership roles and using art to empower
Mecugni, curator and Monica Ramirez-
their respective communities. Their works
Montagut, director.
are steeped in ancient cultural traditions, specific to each artist, and yet speak to universal contemporary themes, revealing the continued relevance of Indigenous knowledge in the twenty-first century. The subjects of the works range from remote celestial bodies and the native bush plum’s tiny flowers to venerable crafts traditions and women’s ceremonies. And yet, each work grapples with the most fundamental questions of existence. Every mark bears testament to natural and cosmological cycles that put one’s being into perspective: whether the ebb and flow of sacred waters and ancestral sands, or the
Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2015
simple passage of a brush against canvas.
cover: Gulumbu Yunupingu, Garak (detail), 2010
Theirs are marks upon the infinite, asserting
photo left by Jeffery Johnston
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NONGGIRRNGA MARAWILI c. 1939– Nonggirrnga Marawili was born into the Madarrpa*, one of the approximately twenty clans composing the Yolngu people in northeastern Arnhem Land. She learned to paint while assisting her husband Djutadjuta Mununggurr, an artist and leader of another Yolngu clan, the Djapu. During the 1990s, she contributed to many important commissions and exhibitions of Yolngu art. It was only after 2011, however, that she emerged as one of the preeminent figures in contemporary bark painting, rendering the designs of her clan in expressionistic, personal ways. She explains: This Yirritja painting I’m doing is coming from the heart and mind, but it’s not the sacred Madarrpa painting. It’s just an ordinary fire, not the Madarrpa fire: tongues of fire, fire burning backwards. This is just my thinking. No one told me to do this pattern. I did this on my own. When the elders see it they will let me know what they think. Although Marawili’s patterns echo sacred Madarrpa iconography, her statement reflects a profound respect for the proscriptions of Yolngu Law,
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according to which only certain people can hold a proprietary claim to paint these designs. The artist’s works often reference the four key elements of Madarrpa Law: lightning, fire, water, and rock. Cascading diamonds convey water and fire; jagged lines are reminiscent of lightning; dark shapes indicate rocks, and white dots suggest sea spray or the barnacles adorning rocks. Each of these elements is connected to specific ancestral events in Madarrpa country. While Marawili alludes to the visual conventions of ceremonial painting, she ultimately represents her own personal interpretations. In doing so, the artist demonstrates the deep connection that Yolngu ancestral forces have to their lands as well as their identity. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious bark painting prize at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and recently she was selected for inclusion in the 2017 National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. __________________________________________ *Boldface type indicates glossary term (see pages 22-23)
Nonggirrnga Marawili, Lightening and the Rock (detail), 2014
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WINTJIYA NAPALTJARRI c. 1930–2014 Wintjiya Napaltjarri belongs to one of the first generations of women to paint for the Papunya Tula Artists company. Born in the Western Desert, she lived nomadically with her family until the 1950s, when she joined the migration of Western Desert peoples to the Lutheran mission at Haasts Bluff.
but by suggestion rather than mimetic illustration of topographical features or narrative events. The ancestral women are indicated by U shapes, while floating comb shapes represent their nyimparra (ceremonial hair-string skirts). The artist’s circles may indicate rock hole formations or
In 1994 she participated in the Kintore/ Haasts Bluff Women’s Painting Project. Watanuma, located northwest of the Northern Territory’s Walungurru settlement known as Kintore, is associated with the Minyma Kutjarra (Two Women) creation story which tells of a pair of sisters whose travels shaped the distinctive landscape of the region. Napaltjarri’s painting recalls the tale
the plump fruits of the bush tomato (Solanum chippendalei) that the women purportedly gathered on their journeys. Her work is held in the most significant Australian collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Women’s Ceremonies at Watanuma (detail), 2010
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Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Women’s Ceremonies at Watanuma, 2006
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YUKULTJI NAPANGATI 1971– Long after other Pintupi had moved to government settlements, Yukultji Napangti and her family remained in the Great Sandy Desert. In 1984, however, they emerged near the remote Kiwirrkurra community in Western Australia, making international headlines.
Napangati has been included in more than eighty exhibitions in Australia and internationally, and her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane.
Napangati started painting in 1996, inspired by senior women such as Wintjiya Napaljtarri, also featured in this exhibition, while frequently assisting her husband Charlie Ward Tjakamarra. Following his death in 2005, Napangati emerged as a prominent figure in her own right, perfecting the stark linear style characteristic of contemporary painting at Kiwirrkurra. Of Women’s Ceremonies at Marrapinti (far right) she says: “My mother’s country, Marrapinti, that’s what I paint about. The ancestors were coming this way and they entered the place called Wilkinkarra [Lake Mackay]. I paint that, and the places Ngaminya, Wirrulnga. They travelled and arrived at Lake Mackay from Yunala. Yunala is the place of bush-potato Dreaming. The ancestors would dig them up and eat them—my mother’s country.
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Yukultji Napangati, Ancestral Women at Yunala (detail) 2012
Yukultji Napangati, Women’s Ceremonies at Marrapinti, 2015
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ANGELINA PWERLE c. 1946– Angelina Pwerle lives in the Utopia region of Australia’s eastern desert. Like many of her peers, her artistic career began with the establishment of the Utopia Women’s Batik Group in 1977. A decade later, she participated in the landmark exhibition A Summer Project, which brought the art of Utopia to national attention.
The bush plum is an Altyerr (or Dreaming) that Pwerle inherited from her father. Its story is crucial to local women’s ceremonies and intricately intertwined with the songlines of the whole country. Closely associated with the sacredness of Ahalpere country, the narrative speaks not only of physical nourishment, but also spiritual sustenance.
Pwerle’s paintings deal with many themes, the best known being the bush plum (or arnwekety). The plant’s seasonal colors dominate the ground flora of Ahalpere country, and women collect its small berries which may be eaten fresh, dried, or mixed into paste.
Pwerle depicts the bush plum as a shimmering constellation of dots, creating grand tapestry-like canvases that suggest the profound connection between the individual and the universal.
She observes: It has little white flowers, then after that there is the fruit. If it doesn’t rain, the plants are dry; if it rains there is an abundance of bush plums. The flower is small when they have just come out . . . well, after that the fruit comes. The fruits are really nice when they are ripe.
Pwerle’s work is in many significant public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan.
Angelina Pwerle, Bush Plum (detail), 2006
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Angelina Pwerle, Bush Plum (detail), 2013
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CARLENE WEST c. 1944– Carlene West was born in the sand hills on the western edge of Tjitjiti, a vast salt lake in Spinifex country. In 1959, West and her family left the desert to escape British nuclear testing at Maralinga. With her husband, she was influential in the Spinifex people’s push to return to country. West began painting in 1997 as part of the Native Title Claim, a movement to reclaim ownership of traditional lands. Whereas West’s early work conforms closely to traditional iconography, after returning to Tjitjiti in 2009—the first time since her childhood—her style underwent a rapid transformation. Formal symbolic and narrative elements receded, giving way to more expressive painting. Depicted in swaths of white, the great salt lake Tjitjiti also found greater prominence.
killed the child. This is a sad story. Those two women can still be seen today standing at Tjitjiti. West’s paintings offer a metaphor for the connection between place and Indigenous identity. Anthropologist John Carty notes, “Carlene’s marks are the traces of meaningful action— of the actions that made the world and that continue to make the world meaningful—of the artist becoming an ancestor.” West’s acclaimed later works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the British Museum, London.
Tjitjiti is the site of the Two Women creation story. West explains: This story involves two women walking across the big salt-lake with a child when they are called by a stranger, a Quoll Man, to hand over the child. The two ladies make a run for it but the Quoll Man threw a spear and impaled the two women together and then Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2014
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Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2013
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REGINA PILAWUK WILSON 1948– In 1973, Regina Pilawuk Wilson left the Catholic mission where had lived since childhood and, along with her husband Harold, established the Aboriginal community of Peppimenarti. A gifted fiber artist, Wilson began painting in 2002 after attending a workshop in Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory. Her large-scale works immediately received acclaim at such prestigious events as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The patterns in Syaw (shown at right) mimic the stitch and weave of the large cylindrical fishnets made from the pinbin (or bush vine). With the imposition of mission life, knowledge of how to make the nets vanished. Wilson sought to revive the lost art in 2014 when she traveled to the distant outstation of
Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Sun Mat (detail), 2015
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Yilan to learn from Freda Wyartja and sisters Lily and Bonnie Roy. In turn, Wilson has taught the stitch to younger generations in primary schools. Her paintings are similarly a conscious attempt to revitalize lost traditions, showing that persistence and change coexist in Ngan’gikurrungurr culture. Wilson’s work is in major public collections—the British Museum, London; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, among others— and has been featured in international exhibitions such as Dreaming their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (2006); the 2009 Moscow Biennial; and Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Harvard Art Museums (2016).
Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Syaw (Fishnet, detail), 2015
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LENA YARINKURA 1961– The daughter of renowned weaver Lena Djamarrayku, Lena Yarinkura is a great fiber art innovator in the Arnhem Land region where she resides at an outstation on her mother’s country close to the Aboriginal community of Maningrida. Yarinkura was taught by her mother to make the utilitarian forms of kunmadj (dilly-bags) and djerrh (string bags). In the late 1980s, she began to experiment using weaving to create representational forms such as animals and regional spirit figures—supernatural creatures or ancestral beings that inhabit her country.
he goes round and round. Spider is like a computer—he can make everything. So, it’s still old, from the beginning, but also new ideas. Yarikura’s work has had a profound influence on artists throughout the region, winning acclaim at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 1994 and 1997. She is represented in most important collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
Working alongside her husband Bob Burruwal, her works embody a deep personal connection to their country, while maintaining the artist’s characteristic playfulness. Of Spider (shown far right), she reflects: Spider is from beginning. It’s my Dreaming. It’s the big brown one. It’s not really a new idea—for a long time people have painted the spider. When I do bark painting, I paint the spider. But then I thought, oh, I can make my string spider—because when
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Lena Yarinkura, Yawkyawk, 2015
Lena Yarinkura, Spider, 2015
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GULUMBU YUNUPINGU c. 1943–2012 Gulumbu Yunupingu is one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary bark painters, but in her community she is equally regarded for her healing powers and traditional remedies. Born into an important Yolngu family, her father was statesman and artist Mungurruway Yunupingu. She began her artistic career in the late 1990s. The infinite reaches of space are a primary inspiration for her. Indeed, stars are frequently found in Yolngu ceremonial painting and relate to two significant Dreaming narratives: the sisters Guthayguthay and Nhayay who became stars in the Milky Way and the seven sisters who traveled by canoe, named Djulpan. Both stories were taught to Yunupingu by her father. While historically sacred to her clan, the narratives in the artist’s depictions become profane representations of celestial bodies. Rather than depict these narratives literally, the artist conceives the stars as a metaphor for the unity of humanity. She explains: I am thinking that the people, the millions and billions of people in the world are, you know, just sitting there
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Gulumbu Yunupingu, Ganyu (Stars, detail), 2002
looking at the stars and think, “Well how can we be separate if we’re all under the same stars? We are like the stars, in that there are as many stars as there are people. Within a few years of her artistic debut, her work was represented at World Expo in Hanover, Germany and received first prize at the prestigious National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. In 2006, she was one of eight artists whose work was incorporated into the design for the new Musée du quai Branly in Paris.
Gulumbu Yunupingu, Ganyu (Stars, detail), 2005
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NYAPANYAPA YUNUPINGU c. 1945– Nyapanyapa Yunupingu is one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. Hailing from a powerful Yolngu family, Nyapanyapa is the daughter of the statesman and artist Mungurruway Yunupingu, and is the younger sister of artist Gulumbu Yunupingu. Yunupingu has imparted a radical shift to Yolngu art. In stark contrast to previous generations of artists—for whom every mark was intended to invoke the presence of ancestral spirits— Nyapanyapa began to incorporate biographical elements into her paintings, before eventually abandoning figuration altogether. In 2009, she began referring to her works as mayilimiriw—a Yolngu word that translates as “meaningless.” She says of the forty-five individual drawings titled Djorra (far right): These are not special stories. I am drawing my ideas. Stories from my head. Her digital Light Painting (shown above near right) is composed of 124 drawings in white paint-pen on acetate. The drawings were scanned and set to an algorithm that randomly overlays the
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Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Light Painting, 2010-2011
images in sets of three, each set to a different opacity. The process continues endlessly, at an almost imperceptible rate, only repeating after several hundred million iterations. There is no start and no end and each time the work is viewed, it is different. Her works are held in every major public collection in Australia. In 2016 she was featured in the Sydney Biennale, and the Bangarra Dance Theatre performed a work inspired by her life.
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Djorra (4 of 45 panels), 2014-2015
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GLOSSARY Aboriginal — Term used to identify the culturally diverse Indigenous peoples of Australia who have inhabited the island continent for around 60,000 years.
Alyawarr — Population inhabiting Utopia, an Aboriginal region in Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as their spoken language. Ancestral beings — Supernatural entities that created the universe and all Aboriginal peoples. Arnhem Land — Sparsely populated northeastern tip of Australia’s Northern Territory, consisting almost entirely of Aboriginal lands. Clan — Descendants of a common ancestor holding certain rights to land, ceremonies, songs, Dreamings, etc. Children belong to their father’s clan, but also possess some rights to their mother’s. Country — Lands to which an Aboriginal person or group has ancestral and political ties that informs their identity and values. Dilly-bags — Traditional conical woven bags. Djapu — One of the roughly twenty clans of the Yolngu people. Dreaming — Complex creation narratives, passed intergenerationally within a clan or community, that are deeply intertwined with daily life and inform notions of country, family, ceremony, and creative expression. Much of the narratives’ meaning is reserved for initiated community members. Kintore/Haasts Bluff Women’s Painting Project — Started in the early 1990s, the first major painting collaborative led by women in the Western Desert. 22
Law — Cosmology originating from Dreaming and ancestral beings that determines one’s identity; dictates property ownership and attendant responsibilities; and regulates all aspects of social interaction. Madarrpa — One of the roughly twenty clans of the Yolngu people. Maralinga — Site of one of world’s largest above-ground nuclear test sites, operated by British government in the 1950s; title to the land was returned to Maralinga people in 1984, yet full decontamination remains uncertain. Moiety — Aboriginal social binary dividing all things (persons, clans, languages, land, etc.) and governing behaviors and customs. Outstation — Remote, usually single-family community of one or two small buildings that arose during the return-to-country movement. Papunya Tula Artists Company — First Aboriginal-owned artist company, founded in 1972, largely responsible for the Western Desert painting movement. Return to Country — Movement starting in the 1970s in which Aboriginal peoples left government settlements and missions to establish small communities or single family outstations on ancestral lands. Settlement — Mission or government site established with the purpose of assimilating (sometimes forcibly) Aboriginal peoples. After the return-to-country movement, settlements persisted but became smaller and more self-determined. Songline — Interconnected series of Dreamings; also signifies a path across the
land and sky traveled by ancestral beings in a Dreaming. Utopia Women’s Batik Group — Founded in 1977, entity facilitating women’s production of batik silks; now known for galvanizing the Utopia region’s painting movement. Yirritja — One of the two moieties into which everything in the cosmos is divided. Yolngu —Indigenous peoples, and their spoken language, from the northeastern Arnhem Land region distinguished by their elaborate system of closely related clans.
Photo by Jeffery Johnston
ABOUT THE MUSEUM The Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University builds on the Newcomb College legacy of education, social enterprise, and artistic experience. Presenting inspiring exhibitions and programs that engage communities both on and off campus, the museum fosters the creative exchange of ideas and cross-disciplinary collaborations around innovative art and design. The museum preserves and advances scholarship on the Newcomb and Tulane art collections. The academic institution for which the museum is named was founded in 1886 as the first degree-granting coordinate college for women in America. The H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was distinguished for educating women in the sciences, physical education, and, most importantly, art education. Out of its famed arts program, the Newcomb Pottery was born. In operation from 1895
until 1940, the Newcomb enterprise produced metalwork, fiber arts, and the now internationally renowned Newcomb pottery. The museum today presents original exhibitions and programs that explore socially engaged art, civic dialogue, and community transformation. The museum also pays tribute to its heritage through shows that recognize the contributions of women to the fields of art and design. As an entity of an academic institution, the Newcomb Art Museum creates exhibitions that utilize the critical frameworks of diverse disciplines in conceptualizing and interpreting art and design. By presenting issues relevant to Tulane and the greater New Orleans region, the museum also serves as a gateway between on and off campus constituencies. 23
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