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Wak Wak

This lorrkon depicts a sacred site at ‘Kurrurldul’, an outstation south of Maningrida.

The ‘rarrk’, or abstract crosshatching, on this work represents the design for the crow totem ancestor called ‘Djimarr’. Today this being exists in the form of a rock, which is permanently submerged at the bottom of Kurrurldul Creek. The ‘Djimarr’ rock in the stream at Kurrurldul is said to move around and call out in a soft hooting tone at night. Both the stone itself and the area around it are considered sacred.

The imagery represents the rock mentioned above at the bottom of Kurrurldul creek, which is the final transmutation of the dreaming ancestor ‘Djimarr’. Finally, the pattern used here is also the crow design used in the sacred ‘Mardayin’ ceremony, which is a large regional patri-moiety ceremony now rarely conducted in central and eastern Arnhem Land.

Categories: Maningrida Arts & Culture

Name: Susan Marawarr

Language: Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Kuninjku artist Susan Marawarr was born in 1967 into a strong artistic family.  She is the daughter of Anchor Kulunba and Mary Wurrdjedje, and the sister of acclaimed bark painters James Iyuna and John Mawurndjul.    Marawarr is an accomplished printmaker, sculptor, weaver and bark painter.  Common subjects of her work include the powerful djang of wak wak, ngalyod and yawkyawk mythologies alongside the imagery of  popular everyday items like dilly bags, fish-traps,  mats and baskets.  She is known for her striking black and white palette.  This combined with her use of deep perspective often creates graphic optical effects, movement and energy in her idiosyncratic works.

 In 2000, she collaborated with the Waanyi artist Judy Watson in the development of Watson’s public art commission of fish fences and dilly bags cast in bronze for Sydney International Airport.  Marawarr toured the United States in 2001 with the exhibition Bush Colour promoting the work of female printmakers as well as supervising bark painting workshops.

Over the last decade Marawarr’s artwork has been shown at numerous  galleries and cultural institutions including, Gabrielle Pizzi, Annandale Galleries, JGM (London) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.   Her work is held in many national collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Victoria and National Gallery of Australia.

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