PAINTING NOW | Dhukumul Wanambi

Yirrkala-based artist Dhukumul Waṉambi brings ancestral songlines into motion with Marrakulu Monuk – an animated digital painting that translates her clan’s sacred saltwater miny’tji into luminous, swirling form. “Instead of painting Marrakulu Monuk onto bark with ochres, I wanted to make it digital while staying true to our traditions,” says the artist, who works as a filmmaker and digital artist with The Mulka Project.

Using a self-made digital brush that mimics the fine marwat of Yolŋu bark painting, Waṉambi animates the infinite movement of her Marrakulu homeland’s waters at Gurka’wuy. “My father inspired me to make paintings like this,” she notes of the late artist and cultural leader Mr Waṉambi. “He was the first to take miny’tji that are normally painted onto bark and burial poles, and make them move.”

By transposing cultural knowledge and a time-honoured visual language into the digital realm, Waṉambi continues her father’s legacy of artistic innovation – a mantle shared by her sister, award-winning contemporary artist Gaypalani Waṉambi – and embodies the experimental spirit of Painting Now.

For enquiries, please email dean@michaelreid.com.au

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