Born in 1968, Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra Yukuwa is a Yolŋu artist from the Dhalwaŋu clan in Gängän, northeast Arnhem Land. She began her artistic journey assisting her father, the acclaimed artist Yanggarriny Wunuŋmurra, on his 1997 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award–winning painting. Following his death in 2003, she received cultural permission to continue painting with clan designs.
Wunuŋmurra’s work features precise geometric compositions exploring themes such as Buyku (fish traps). Through the shimmering interplay of crosshatching and personal motifs, she continues her family’s sacred legacy while developing a distinctive visual language.
One reading of the work is the union between subgroups of the Dhalwangu clan during regular fishtrap ceremonies, the last of which occurred in 2018. The sacred diamond designs, generally referring to the waters around Gängän, are encased in a strong grid of vertical and horizontal lines representing the fishtrap structure made during Mirrawarr (early Dry Season) from Rangan (paperbark) and wooden stakes. This Buyku, or fishtrap area, is ‘company’ land – shared by all who live by and sing the river. Participants in this song cycle and fishing activity hunt Baypinga (Saratoga), as does the Gany’tjurr (Reef Heron), the archetypal Yirritja hunter.
Awards include Winner of the TOGA Northern Territory Contemporary Art Award (2008) and Winner of the Bark Painting Prize, Telstra NATSIAA (2012), with multiple Telstra NATSIAA finalist placements.
Buyku (7110-23), 2023
PROVENANCE
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Northern Territory, Australia
$21,000
In stock
Born in 1968, Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra Yukuwa is a Yolŋu artist from the Dhalwaŋu clan in Gängän, northeast Arnhem Land. She began her artistic journey assisting her father, the acclaimed artist Yanggarriny Wunuŋmurra, on his 1997 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award–winning painting. Following his death in 2003, she received cultural permission to continue painting with clan designs.
Wunuŋmurra’s work features precise geometric compositions exploring themes such as Buyku (fish traps). Through the shimmering interplay of crosshatching and personal motifs, she continues her family’s sacred legacy while developing a distinctive visual language.
One reading of the work is the union between subgroups of the Dhalwangu clan during regular fishtrap ceremonies, the last of which occurred in 2018. The sacred diamond designs, generally referring to the waters around Gängän, are encased in a strong grid of vertical and horizontal lines representing the fishtrap structure made during Mirrawarr (early Dry Season) from Rangan (paperbark) and wooden stakes. This Buyku, or fishtrap area, is ‘company’ land – shared by all who live by and sing the river. Participants in this song cycle and fishing activity hunt Baypinga (Saratoga), as does the Gany’tjurr (Reef Heron), the archetypal Yirritja hunter.
Awards include Winner of the TOGA Northern Territory Contemporary Art Award (2008) and Winner of the Bark Painting Prize, Telstra NATSIAA (2012), with multiple Telstra NATSIAA finalist placements.
