SYDNEY.- Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney are introducing the work of acclaimed Yolŋu artist Marrnyula Munuŋgurr, renowned for her distinctive Dhuwa paintings capturing the stories of the freshwaters of Wäṉḏawuy, where the Yolŋu Shark ancestor once rushed up and hit its head. For her debut Sullivan+Strumpf showing, Munuŋgurr will exhibit a new series of largescale bark paintings, including several new works inspired by her unique puzzle-work compositions.

First developed in 2016, using bark scraps left over by other artists, the puzzle-works comprised several miniature bark paintings, combined into one larger scale piece. The earliest of these works, Ganybu, 2016, is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

A common motif within Munuŋgurr’s work is the ganybu, or fish trap, an important symbol within Yolŋu culture. In her Sullivan+Strumpf exhibition, Ganybu | Fishtraps of Waṉḏawuy, Munuŋgurr shares with us her ganybu stories, passed down for centuries through Yolŋu songs and paintings.

A joint opening is offered today from 3 – 5pm Saturday October 28, shared with fellow Yolŋu artist Naminapu Maymuru- White, presenting a new series of her Milŋiyawuy paintings and larrakitj, as a follow up to her sell-out 2022 Sydney solo exhibition debut.

The two exhibitions proudly build on Sullivan+Strumpf’s collaborative relationship with Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Arts Centre in Yirrkala, NT, presenting solo exhibitions by two of their most esteemed artists at their Sydney Gallery, October – November 2023.

Marrnyula Munuŋgurr was born in 1964 in Yirrkala, East-Arnhemland, in the Northern Territory, later moving to Garrthalala, and then to Wäṉḏawuy, where her family stayed for a long time. It was here that she went to school and learned about her clan’s paintings.

Brought up in one of the most artistically prolific camps in Yirrkala over this period, she started painting when she was about thirteen or fourteen, sitting close with her father and his brothers at Wäṉḏawuy, asking questions, learning the stories within their works. Munuŋgurr grew to assist her father (Winner of the Best Bark Painting Prize in the 1997 National Aboriginal and Islander Art Award) with his sacred Djapu paintings as well as developing her own style of narrative naive paintings.

In 2020 Munuŋgurr won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’s Telstra Bark Painting Award. Her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, the Arts Gallery of NSW, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Arts Gallery of South Australia, and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney
Marrnyula Munuŋgurr: Ganybu | Fishtraps of Waṉḏawuy
October 28th, 2023 - November 11th, 2023