Florescence – The Flowering

Michael Reid Sydney is delighted to present Florescence: The Flowering, an expansive exhibition of spectacular new work by Gaypalani Wanambi and Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra Yukuwa, two leading Yolŋu artists working at the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre in Yirrkala, Northeast Arnhem Land.

Launching alongside Yolŋu Power at the Art Gallery of New South Wales – which charts the world-significant artistic flowering that has emerged from Yirrkala from the 1940s to the present – Florescence offers a contemporary complement to AGNSW’s sweeping historical display by centring the perspectives of two extraordinary talents at the forefront of an exciting new generation of Yolŋu artists.

Both Wanambi and Wunuŋmurra share the essence of their Country through their art. Their designs are structured in ways akin to a flower that grows from the body of a plant, at once highly decorative and expressive of identities embedded in place. Each land flowers in a different way. In Florescence, Wunuŋmurra’s intricate bark paintings and Wanambi’s shimmering etched metal works circle a towering forest of the two artists’ ḻarrakitj.

Florescence is Wanambi’s first large-scale release of new work since she was awarded the prestigious Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize and comes soon after the announcement of her shortlisting in the upcoming Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. “Her works are intricate and iridescent, like a piece of fine jewellery, and reveal the hand of a staggering talent,” notes a Vogue story published in the lead-up to Wanambi’s showing in Yolŋu Power at AGNSW.

Florescence arrives at a moment of burgeoning critical attention and institutional recognition for Yirrkala artists on the international stage. In addition to Yolŋu Power, it coincides with the grand opening of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spectacularly reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, as well as the landmark exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art at The Potter Museum of Art.

While carrying on the creative legacies of their forebears, Wanambi and Wunuŋmurra have extended their practice beyond classical, sacred designs to grow into their own informal interpretation of their homeland. The land has blossomed in a new way. Florescence will be welcomed with an opening celebration on Thursday, 19 June, 6–8pm. Together with several of their peers from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, both artists will be present for this very special occasion.

To RSVP to our public celebration or enquire about available work, please contact dean@michaelreid.com.au