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Nyapanyapa Yunupingu

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Nyapanyapa Yunupingu
Bornc. 1945 (2025-05-13UTC16:45)
Yirrkala, Northern Territory, Australia
Died20 October 2021(2021-10-20) (aged 75–76)
Yirrkala, Northern Territory, Australia
NationalityAustralian
OccupationContemporary artist
Known forPainting, contemporary Indigenous Australian art
SpouseDjiriny Mununggurr
ParentMungurrawuy Yunupingu (father)
RelativesGulumbu Yunupingu (sister) Galarrwuy Yunupingu (brother) Mandawuy Yunupingu (brother) Barrupu Yunupingu (sister) Dhopiya Yunupingu (sister) Djakangu Yunupingu (sister)
Awards2021 Wynne Prize

Nyapanyapa Yunupingu (c. 1945 – 20 October 2021) was an Australian Yolngu painter and printmaker who lived and worked in the community at Yirrkala, Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. Yunupingu created works of art that drastically diverge from the customs of the Yolngu people and made waves within the art world as a result. Her work is renowned for its continuously evolving style, increasing in complexity and often, scale, over time.[1] Due to this departure from tradition within her oeuvre, Yunupingu's work had varying receptions from within her community and the broader art world.

Early life

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Yunupingu was a Yolŋu woman of the Gumatj clan and was born in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, in 1945.[2] She was the daughter of Yolŋu artist and cultural leader Munggurrawuy Yunupingu (c.1905–1979), who was involved with the Yirrkala bark petitions.[3] Yunupingu's father taught her and her siblings how to paint, allowing her to watch as he created various traditional works.[4] In a conversation between Nyapanyapa Yunupingu and Will Stubbs, Yunupingu discussed how her father taught her to paint. He told her:

Daughter, see this, you will do this in the future.[4]

Nyapanyapa also stated of her generational painting inspiration in another instance:

My father Mungurrawuy Yunupingu taught me how to paint. I learnt from watching him. He was always working. He said to me, 'When I am gone you will follow behind me and paint too. Show the people---paint and work.'[5]

Widowed, she was a wife of Djapu clan leader Djiriny Mununggurr, who died in 1977. She was the sister of brothers Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Mandawuy Yunupingu,[6] and artist sisters Gulumbu Yunupingu, Barrupu Yunupingu, Nancy Gaymala Yunupingu, and Eunice Djerrkngu Yunupingu[7](c.1945–2022),[8][9][10] among others.

Nyapanyapa Yunupingu grew up working on the mission with her sisters, herding dairy cattle and goats.[3] She learned to paint by watching her father's painting process, although he did not officially pass on Miny'tji designs to her.[11]

Art career

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Yunupingu worked through the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala. Here, she developed a close relationship with Will Stubbs, the art coordinator at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre at Yirrkala. He helped to push her creatively and encourage her art.[12]

Will Stubbs, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre coordinator, said of Yunupingu and her art:

Nyapanyapa's best form of communication is her art. This is because she is deaf, doesn’t speak English, is otherwise not that verbal, doesn't belong to a culture which believes it is necessary to talk at length about art unless in regard to its sacred character, doesn't paint sacred art, does not have a sense of herself as an individual as distinct from her kinship group, does not have a sense of herself as an important artist, and does not have an interest in talking about herself.[13]

Early career in painting

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Prior to gaining international fame, Yunupingu grew up watching her artist father, Munggurrawuy Yunupingu, who encouraged her to make art after his death. With this support, Yunupingu joined her sisters [Barrupu Yunupingu] and [Gulumbu Yunupingu] at the Buku-Larrngay Mulka Art Center in Yirrkala where she first began practicing her printmaking. She first began working in the screen printing medium at the Art Center. These early works were defined by her once-figurative style, in 2007-2008, the focus of her work shifted and she gained late-blooming acclaim.[14]

Yunupingu began painting at The Yirrkala Printspace, working daily in the centre's outdoor courtyard. Her presence eventually attracted a group of artists to join her (referred to as the "Courtyard Ladies") which included her sisters Barrupu Yunupingu and Gulumbu Yunupingu, as well as Nongirrna Marawili, Mulkun Wirrpanda, and Dhuwarrwarr Marika.[11] Yunupingu was a part of a movement at Yirrkala towards secularism in their art with this group.[15] Yunupingu made screen prints at first, focusing on a figurative visual style.[12] Yunupingu's early work dealt with personal stories and experiences, creating narratives that were not inspired by ancestral stories or dreamings but rather by her own life and her family history.[11] Her work met with much success with her breakout painting Incident at Mutpi 1975, 2008, which featured a depiction of her being mauled by a buffalo. The Mulka Project created a film to go along with the piece and the painting and film won the 2008 Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award.[11] Yunupingu was inspired to create this work by Will Stubbs, who presented her with a large bark before the creation of Incident at Mutpi 1975.[12]

Mayilimiriw ("meaningless") paintings

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Yunupingu's mayilimiriw paintings derive their name from the Yolngu Matha word that translates as “meaningless." These works are made from white ochre pigment dug from local grounds and rely on a densely layered technique to fill the entirety of the bark surfaces they’re painted upon. As such, these works are characterized by their loosely interwoven networks of crosshatching and diverse directionality, supplying them with a dynamic, highly textural effect. Although her works maintain a recognizably Yolngu materiality, this non-narrative approach breaks from traditional Yolngu frameworks. Traditionally, most Yolngu art was based on a system of restricted knowledge and a means of communicating the ancestral and spiritual worlds. Yunupingu, however, departs from this expectation of meaning entirely.[16]

In 2009, after a dream in which the buffalo that had mauled Yunupingu in 1975 appeared to her, she vowed to never again paint a depiction of the traumatic event. She began instead for a period to create paintings that were devoid of figurative images. Rather, they focused on layering coloured cross-hatching, creating an artistic style that centred around the nature of creation in the moment.[17] Nyapanyapa's abstraction in her mayilimiriw paintings may not seem to mean anything, but she was a highly ceremonial person and this work can still be tied to ideas of country and ancestral tradition.[12]

White paintings

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Yunupingu's "white paintings" take this concept of mayilimiriw further. Produced from 2009–2010, this series of paintings are solely focused on rhythmic mark-making, excluding colour from the narrative and instead creating works that were uninhibited in their spontaneous nature. Rather than being a premeditated image, Yunupingu's resulting work was fully dependent on the moment, the texture and stroke varying depending on material factors such as the brush and paint she was using.[11] Examples from this series of works include Mapu, 2012, and Untitled, 2013, which showcase her minimalistic style through their use of simplified figuration upon a background of thinly hand-drawn lines in white-pipe clay. [18]

Yunupingu's paintings

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Whilst most of her work falls into the category of mayilimiriw, Yunupingu has created newer works which do contain figurative references. Specifically, she has included Ganyu (stars), which refer to the story of the seven sisters.[11] Nyapanyapa created "The Seven Sisters Collaboration" with her seven sisters in 2012. This collection contained prints from each sister, which when brought together in a constellation form "The Seven Sisters Collaboration." The prints all emphasize each sister's individual style, while also coming together under a common theme.[19]

Process and materials

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Yunupingu's practice was one solely performed for her own satisfaction, perhaps hinting at her works independence from tradition and Dreaming narratives in favor of reflections of historical and contemporary events and activities.[20] Yunupingu did not draft or plot her paintings, instead she relied on spontaneity and texture to create her works.Throughout her career as an artist she transitioned from creating razor-incised carvings of animals and spirits, to linocut prints, to bark paintings, and finally multimedia projections.[3] These works display her range of materials, more often natural ones, although occasionally modern ones are present. She worked in ochre, ink, clay, acrylic, or pen on bark, wood, and even occasionally on paper. Her color palette was often minimalistic, although it did depart occasionally from typical, traditional Aboriginal color schemes, using pink and blue.[21]

Within her mayilimiriw paintings, Yunupingu created a structure to work from by adding in circles, lines, and shapes which she then surrounded with crosshatching, using red, pink, and white earth pigments.[11]

Notable career moments

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  • She had her first solo exhibition of bark paintings in 2008 at Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at the Biennale of Sydney in 2012 and 2016.[22] Her 2016 exhibition at the Biennale of Sydney contained her larrakitj memorial poles, notable for their non-sacred decoration.[23]
  • In 2008, Yunupingu won the Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Prize at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards with a piece that combined painting on eucalyptus bark with video to narrate a biographic event in which she was gored by a buffalo in 1975. Her paintings of being gored by a buffalo were the inspiration and backdrop for Nyapanyapa, a dance choreographed by Stephen Page for Bangarra Dance Theatre which toured the United States.[24]
  • In 2017, her abstract painting Lines was awarded the bark painting prize at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The work was subsequently acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), in Darwin.[25]
  • Yunupingu's exhibitions at Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery in 2008 and in the Taranthi Festival at the Art Gallery of South Australian contained her large wall works. Marking the Infinite was the centerpiece, made up of forty-five individual papers reused from discarded print proofs taken from the Yirrkala Print Space. This marks, doubly, the "found" movement of Yirrkala artists as well as what initiated Aboriginal artists permission and foray into using non-natural mediums. These paper paintings and drawings by Yunupingu were the first works on paper to have ever been sold at Buku-Larrnggay.

[26]

  • She was selected as one of the featured artists for the 2020 Australia-wide Know My Name initiative of the National Gallery of Australia.[27]
  • Starting on 23 May 2020 (later than scheduled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia) and running until 25 October 2020,[28] a comprehensive solo exhibition of Yunupingu's work, the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu, was mounted at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. The exhibition featured more than 60 works, and was the first solo exhibition at MAGNT to feature work by an Aboriginal Australian artist.[29] A catalogue to accompany the exhibition was published.[30]
  • In 2021, Yunupingu won the Wynne Prize for Garak – Night Sky, and the National Gallery of Australia purchased two of her works for inclusion in Part Two of the Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now exhibition.[31] Yunupingu died in Yirrkala on 20 October 2021.[32]
  • Yunupingu's work, alongside ten other Yolngu women artist's works, appeared in the "Bark Ladies" exhibition in 2021. Each artist was chosen for their roles at Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre and for how their art worked to challenge preconceptions of both modern and Indigenous art in Australia.[33]
  • In 2022, Yunupingu's work was displayed in the Madayin exhibition. This exhibition traveled to various cities at museums across the United States, continuing to 2025.[34]

Reception of art

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While Yunupingu's art has received many accolades and has seen success internationally, there is a certain level of puzzlement over her success within her own community. Her paintings diverge from tradition and do not depict the traditional stories and dreamings of her people, nor their Minytji designs, thus they are seen by those within the culture as having "no power" and as something that is communicating purely with the Western art market rather than the Yolngu people.[11] Despite this hesitancy within her own community, Yunupingu was trailblazing a new approach to art within her culture, creating a style and approach that is strictly her own. The criticism Yunupingu has faced about her "meaningless" paintings is relative, and some understand how she is an artist who is always tying her art back to ideas of country.[12]

Collections

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Significant exhibitions

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Awards

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  • 2008: 3D Award, 25th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award[39]
  • 2017: Bark Painting Award, 34th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award[39]
  • 2021: Wynne Prize for Garak – night sky[46]

Death

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Yunupingu died on 20 October 2021 in Yirrkala, Northern Territory, Australia.[47]

References

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  1. ^ Russell-Cook, Myles (2021). Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists From Yirrkala. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria.
  2. ^ a b "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu". Art Gallery NSW. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d Skerritt, Henry F., 1979– éditeur intellectuel. Baum, Tina, auteur. (2016). Marking the infinite : contemporary women artists from Aboriginal Australia : from the Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection : Nonggirrnga Marawili, Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Yukultji Napangati, Angelina Pwerle, Carlene West, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Lena Yarinkura, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu. Nevada Museum of Art. ISBN 978-3-7913-5591-7. OCLC 980860631.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b Wan̲ambi, Wukun̲; McDonald, Kade; Skerritt, Henry F.; Blake, Andrew; University of Virginia, eds. (2022). Maḏayin: Waltjan̲ ga Waltjan̲buy Yolnuwu Miny'tji Yirrkalawuy = Eight decades of Aboriginal Australian bark painting from Yirrkala. Charlottesville: Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. ISBN 978-1-63681-055-3.
  5. ^ Lane, Carly; Cubillo, Franchesa (2012). unDisclosed: 2, National Indigenous Art Triennial. National Gallery of Australia.
  6. ^ Cubillo, Franchesca. "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu". unDISCLOSED: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial. National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  7. ^ "Bark Ladies centres female Yolŋu artists". Art Guide Australia. 13 December 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  8. ^ Eccles, Jeremy (1 July 2022). "Mrs D Yunupingu 1945/2022". Aboriginal Art Directory. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  9. ^ "Ms. D. (Djerrkngu) Eunice Yunupingu (c.1945 - 2022)". Alcaston Gallery. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  10. ^ "Archibald Prize Archibald 2021 work: Me and my sisters by Eunice Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu". Art Gallery of NSW. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h "MAGNT – the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu". MAGNT. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  12. ^ a b c d e Sprague, Quentin. “White Lines: The Recent Work of Nyapanyapa Yunupingu.” Discipline 3 (Winter 2013)
  13. ^ a b Martin-Chew, Louise (2019). "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu".
  14. ^ Sprague, Quentin (Winter 2013). "White Lines: The Recent Work of Nyapanyapa Yunupingu". Discipline (3): 59–68.
  15. ^ Skerritt, Henry F. "The Country Speaks Through Her." Nongirrnga Marawili: From my Heart and Mind, edited by Cara Pinchbeck (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2018)
  16. ^ Sprague, Quentin (Winter 2013). "White Lines: The Recent Work of Nyapanyapa Yunupingu". Discipline (3): 59–68.
  17. ^ "Know My Name". nga.gov.au. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  18. ^ Lane, Carly; Cubillo, Franchesa (2012). unDisclosed: 2, National Indigenous Art Triennial.
  19. ^ Studd, Annie. "Balnhdurr-A Lasting Impression." Yirrkala: Buka-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, 2015.
  20. ^ Lane, Carly; Cubillo, Franchesa (2012). unDisclosed: 2, National Indigenous Art Triennial. National Gallery of Australia.
  21. ^ Geissler, Marie (2023). Dreaming the Land: Aboriginal Art From Remote Australia. London: Thames & Hudson.
  22. ^ "CooeeArt Since 1981". www.cooeeart.com.au. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  23. ^ Geissler, Marie (2023). Dreaming the Land: Aboriginal Art From Remote Australia. London: Thames & Hudson.
  24. ^ Cuthbertson, Debbie (1 September 2016). "Indigenous artist Nyapanyapa Yunupingu's paintings inspire Bangarra Dance Theatre show". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  25. ^ "Spinifex and spears: here are the winning works of the 2017 Telstra NATSIAA Awards". NITV. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  26. ^ Stubbs, Will (2016). "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu: Art of the Artless," in Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists From Aboriginal Australia. Nevada Museum of Art and Del Monico Books.
  27. ^ Starmer, Karyn. "#KnowMyName: Recognising Australian Women in art". The RiotACT. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  28. ^ "the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu". Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  29. ^ "Coronavirus restrictions are easing, and now this NT gallery is marking two milestones". ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 29 May 2020. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  30. ^ the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (published 2020), 25 April 2020, ISBN 978-0-648-65422-3
  31. ^ Wild, Stephi. "National Gallery Announces Three New Exhibitions By Women Artists". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  32. ^ "Australian art world in mourning after death of internationally renowned Yolngu artist N. Yunupingu". ABC News. 20 October 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  33. ^ Russell-Cook, Myles (2021). Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists From Yirrkala. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria.
  34. ^ a b "About the Exhibition". Kluge-Ruhe: Madayin. 8 February 2024. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  35. ^ "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu". artsearch.nga.gov.au. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  36. ^ "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu | Artists | NGV". www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  37. ^ "Seven Sisters – Nyapanyapa". collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  38. ^ a b c d e f g "Ganyu | Stars". Kluge-Ruhe: Madayin. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  39. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Nyapanyapa Yunupingu – Artworks | Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Australia". www.roslynoxley9.com.au. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  40. ^ "unDISCLOSED – ABOUT". nga.gov.au. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  41. ^ Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art.
  42. ^ Hood Museum of Art (2012). Crossing cultures : the Owen and Wagner collection of contemporary aboriginal Australian art at the Hood Museum of Art. Gilchrist, Stephen,, Butler, Sally. Hanover, New Hampshire. ISBN 978-0-944722-44-2. OCLC 785870480.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  43. ^ The World is Not a Foreign Land.
  44. ^ "The world is not a foreign land | Ian Potter Museum of Art". art-museum.unimelb.edu.au. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  45. ^ "Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia". Nevada Museum of Art. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  46. ^ Knowles, Rachael (15 June 2021). "Story of the stars shines the brightest". National Indigenous Times. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  47. ^ Westwood, Matthew (20 October 2021). "Beloved Aboriginal artist N. Yunupingu passes away". The Australian. Retrieved 21 October 2021.

Further reading

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