Gangan, 2007

natural earth pigments on hollow log

317 cm

Est. $6,000 – $9,000

Hammer $7,250

Provenance: Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, Yirrkala, NT, Cat No. 3262H Annandale Galleries, Sydney, NSW, Cat No. BLA509 Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka and Annandale Galleries
Exhibited: Gunybi Ganambarr: Dhuwa Saltwater – incised + shaped barks, ceremonial poles & sculpture, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, NSW, 28 October – 5 December 2009
Artwork story: The subject is Gängan itself, the artist's homeland and the point of origin of the whole Yirritja moiety. During the times of Wanarr, the period of the first mornings, the Ancestral Creator Being Barama travelled from the coast of Blue Mud Bay and emerged from a freshwater billabong at Gängan. The water imbued with the mud of this place, streaming down his chest and struck by sunlight, made the diamond design that distils the identity of Gängan and its people. Carrying a sacred staff, with weed hanging from his arms, Barama strode ashore, performed the first ceremony of the Yirritja moiety, and from here travelled through Country giving law, language, song, dance and madayin to the Yolŋu. At the very apex of the pole, sun-like, is the sacred emergence point beneath the waters from where Barama surfaced — the place Gulutji, swept clear by the giant freshwater crayfish Dhakawa. The miny'tji covering the pole entirely in incised natural pigments belong to the Dhalwaŋu, Ganambarr's mother clan. Ganambarr reserved Gangan for his first solo exhibition at Annandale Galleries in October 2009 — the show that sold out completely — while the other two larrakitj with which he had won the 2008 Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Artist Award at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art entered the Gallery's permanent collection and the Kerry Stokes Collection. At 317 centimetres, incised and rendered with a precision that transforms the cylindrical form into carved relief, Gangan is among the most fully realised works of the practice he had pioneered barely a year before.

Catalogues234 of 257

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Sale 3 · Lot 86

Gunybi Ganambarr

b. 1973

Region: Arnhem Land
Community: Gäṉgaṉ
Language group: Yolŋu (Yolngu) – Ŋaymil (Ngaymil) clan

Gangan, 2007

natural earth pigments on hollow log

317 cm

Est. $6,000 – $9,000

Hammer $7,250

Provenance: Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, Yirrkala, NT, Cat No. 3262H Annandale Galleries, Sydney, NSW, Cat No. BLA509 Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above Accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka and Annandale Galleries
Exhibited: Gunybi Ganambarr: Dhuwa Saltwater – incised + shaped barks, ceremonial poles & sculpture, Annandale Galleries, Sydney, NSW, 28 October – 5 December 2009
Artwork story: The subject is Gängan itself, the artist's homeland and the point of origin of the whole Yirritja moiety. During the times of Wanarr, the period of the first mornings, the Ancestral Creator Being Barama travelled from the coast of Blue Mud Bay and emerged from a freshwater billabong at Gängan. The water imbued with the mud of this place, streaming down his chest and struck by sunlight, made the diamond design that distils the identity of Gängan and its people. Carrying a sacred staff, with weed hanging from his arms, Barama strode ashore, performed the first ceremony of the Yirritja moiety, and from here travelled through Country giving law, language, song, dance and madayin to the Yolŋu. At the very apex of the pole, sun-like, is the sacred emergence point beneath the waters from where Barama surfaced — the place Gulutji, swept clear by the giant freshwater crayfish Dhakawa. The miny'tji covering the pole entirely in incised natural pigments belong to the Dhalwaŋu, Ganambarr's mother clan. Ganambarr reserved Gangan for his first solo exhibition at Annandale Galleries in October 2009 — the show that sold out completely — while the other two larrakitj with which he had won the 2008 Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Artist Award at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art entered the Gallery's permanent collection and the Kerry Stokes Collection. At 317 centimetres, incised and rendered with a precision that transforms the cylindrical form into carved relief, Gangan is among the most fully realised works of the practice he had pioneered barely a year before.