Gurtha, 2022

natural earth pigments on bark

108 x 28 cm

$3,500

Secure payment via Stripe. Prices in AUD.

Provenance: Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, NT
Artwork story: Barrupu's painting departs from the long-held practice of concealing sacred design beneath other elements. Here the Gumatj miny'tji stands alone, an expression of gurtha, or fire. The diamond patterning is the ancestral design for Gumatj country and carries a foundational story. In ancestral times Baru, the Crocodile, brought fire into the lands of the Madarrpa clan, from where it spread north to a ceremonial ground at Ngalarrwuy in Gumatj country. There, leaders of the Yirritja moiety used fire for the first time. As the flames spread, the ancestral animals each responded in their own way, and those responses became the origins of the Gumatj totems. The places where these events unfolded remain significant clan sites today. The diamonds hold several layers of meaning at once. They are the ancestral fire itself, its red flames, white ash and smoke, black charcoal and yellow dust. For the clans connected to this story they also speak of other things: the inner parts of guku, the bush honey found in hollow stringybark trees; the skin, blood, fat and bone of a Gumatj person; and the mud and waterweeds of a billabong belonging to Baru, who was himself transformed through fire and stands as a power totem of the Gumatj.

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b. c.1948

natural earth pigments on bark

108 x 28 cm

$3,500

Secure payment via Stripe. Prices in AUD.

Provenance: Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, NT
Artwork story: Barrupu's painting departs from the long-held practice of concealing sacred design beneath other elements. Here the Gumatj miny'tji stands alone, an expression of gurtha, or fire. The diamond patterning is the ancestral design for Gumatj country and carries a foundational story. In ancestral times Baru, the Crocodile, brought fire into the lands of the Madarrpa clan, from where it spread north to a ceremonial ground at Ngalarrwuy in Gumatj country. There, leaders of the Yirritja moiety used fire for the first time. As the flames spread, the ancestral animals each responded in their own way, and those responses became the origins of the Gumatj totems. The places where these events unfolded remain significant clan sites today. The diamonds hold several layers of meaning at once. They are the ancestral fire itself, its red flames, white ash and smoke, black charcoal and yellow dust. For the clans connected to this story they also speak of other things: the inner parts of guku, the bush honey found in hollow stringybark trees; the skin, blood, fat and bone of a Gumatj person; and the mud and waterweeds of a billabong belonging to Baru, who was himself transformed through fire and stands as a power totem of the Gumatj.