Nans
Going to Nan & Pops, seeing the Dinawan (emu) on the way, kids playing outside together, adults inside havin cuppas
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Warraburnburn (spirit)
This carving is representational of a “ghost spirit”. Yolngu lore says they are a lot like Yolngu, they like to live in the bush and go hunting and fishing with their families.
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Baru Dhawu (Crocodile Story)
Baru (the crocodile man), was from the Gumatj clan. People usually call him Gurdu Gurdu or Baru which means crocodile. He lived his life at a place called Yirrkala. Living near him were other people, and when Baru didn’t have enough to eat he began to kill and eat these other people. After a while others noticed that some people were missing. When Baru went to the toilet, the people could smell this strong smell, so they knew that he ate the other people. Some men went to get help and they took message sticks to the other tribes. Some were sending smoke signals. When they came to Baru’s camp they started to spear him in the left side of his ribs. He dropped into the fire and burnt his left hand and maybe his right hand. He then ran into the bush and yelled to his countrymen – the animals, birds and fish that live on the land and in the sea. He stopped and he named the tribes and clans and also the places until he came to a place called Gamarru/Guyurru. There he took a rest and said to himself “This is where I stop and call this place Gamarru/Guyurru”. Baru, still in pain from the fire, then jumped into the water and turned himself into a crocodile. The fire left scars on his back. Baru paintings belong to Gumatj and Warrawarra and also the Marpi clan. This painting is used at death ceremonies or initiations and it normally is painted on the belly, which means the person the design is painted on is part of Gurdu Gurdu (the crocodile people).
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Bobby Bununggurr – Nylalindi
In this painting Bobby depicts the vastness of Gurwliny (Arafura Wetlands) in North East Arnhem Land and in particular his homeland of Nylalindi. These are the second biggest wetlands in the world, Florida has the biggest, and in this painting Bobby is showing the colours of the dry season sunsets and of the Earth and sky and the landscape scorched by fires used to control growth and for hunting, and the wilderness of the grasslands and paperbark tree forests which line the freshwater billabongs, so abundant in food and birdlife.
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Woven Mat
Traditionally, Nganiyal (conical mats) were used as an insect screen when erected, and as a sitting mat when folded. They are used in Ceremony as well as a functional item.
Nowadays, artists weave many different shapes including flat, round and oblong.
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Woven Mat
Traditionally, Nganiyal (conical mats) were used as an insect screen when erected, and as a sitting mat when folded. They are used in Ceremony as well as a functional item.
Nowadays, artists weave many different shapes including flat, round and oblong.
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Woven Mat
Traditionally, Nganiyal (conical mats) were used as an insect screen when erected, and as a sitting mat when folded. They are used in Ceremony as well as a functional item.
Nowadays, artists weave many different shapes including flat, round and oblong.
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Sunset
“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.”
– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth
This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.
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Untitled
“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.”
– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth
This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.
111582247833
Untitled
“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.”
– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth
This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.
Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.