Wanapa – works on paper

Michael Reid Sydney will soon present our first exhibition of works on paper by Yolŋu artist Balwaldja Wanapa Munuŋgurr, affectionately known as Wanapa, whose intricately detailed drawings offer a warm welcome to the homelands of northeast Arnhem Land. Rendered with finely articulated lines and monochromatic colour, these intimate topographical portraits adopt a distinctive bird’s-eye perspective, lovingly anatomising the buildings, landmarks and gathering places around which community life unfolds. Wanapa is now represented in the National Gallery of Victoria Collection following the acquisition of his drawings earlier this year.

From the coastal settlements of Gurka’wuy, Barraratjpi and Gutjaŋan to the inland river systems of Waṉḏawuy, where he grew up, Wanapa’s drawings chart a deeply personal geography of Country and community. These compositions are at once maps, architectural studies and portraits of social life. Houses, roads, ceremonial grounds and infrastructure are meticulously, idiosyncratically rendered, with their arrangement revealing the relationships that give each homeland its character. Some buildings appear X-rayed to offer an interior view, while others are plugged into surrounding features through an intricate network of lines. Seen from above, these familiar structures become the coordinates of an entire social world, with the artist’s linework conveying at once an almost deadpan blueprint of the built landscape’s utility and a more heartfelt diagram of the social connections that animate it.

Drawn from memory, Wanapa’s work honours the places where families gather, ceremonies unfold and community life is sustained across generations. For more than three decades, Wanapa has been a quietly indispensable presence at Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala, working as part of the art crew that supports the region’s internationally celebrated artists. His responsibilities have ranged from gathering bark and earth pigments to preparing materials, constructing frames and transporting artists and artworks between remote homelands – journeys across vast distances that now inform his drawings. Known for his gentle humour, steadfast dedication and unassuming manner, Wanapa spent decades helping others realise their artistic visions before beginning to make drawings of his own in 2020, initially using the backs of discarded printing proofs. What emerged was a deeply individual practice grounded in the places, people and experiences that have shaped his life.

Each drawing carries its own constellation of memories. Recalling Waṉḏawuy, Wanapa describes fishing in the river systems of his childhood, collecting yabbies by the flour tin and using pandanus trunks to stun fish. At Barraratjpi, he remembers hunting stingray and turtle and gathering shellfish from the sand, while at Gurka’wuy he identifies the sacred Molk ceremonial ground among the settlement’s familiar landmarks. These recollections illuminate the intimacy of his approach: the homelands are not distant subjects to be surveyed but places known through family, ceremony, work and the rhythms of everyday life.

Alongside the NGV acquisition, Wanapa’s growing institutional recognition has seen him named a finalist for the 2024 National Works on Paper Award at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. He brings a lifetime of quiet observation and service to a practice that celebrates the vitality of Yolŋu homelands and the communities they sustain.

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