Mardayin Design, 2004

natural earth pigments on bark

159 x 39.5 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,000

Provenance: Maningrida Arts & Culture, Maningrida, NT, Cat No. 2229-04 Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Waterloo, NSW Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above
Artwork story: The daughter of the great Kuninjku painter Peter Marralwanga and partner of John Mawurndjul, Kay Lindjuwanga came to bark painting through two of the most significant artistic lineages in Western Arnhem Land. Marralwanga, who died in 1987, was among the defining figures of the Maningrida school and Mawurndjul's uncle and teacher. Mawurndjul, widely regarded as the pre-eminent Kuninjku artist of his generation, won four Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and was commissioned to create a work onsite at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, before its opening in 2006. Lindjuwanga was instructed in rarrk specifically to assist Mawurndjul with his bark painting, a collaborative practice not unusual among Arnhem Land artists, and developed her own independent practice. Mardayin Design concerns a major ceremony of the highest sacred significance across several Arnhem Land language groups. The Mardayin performance site is located on a large billabong covered in waterlilies, approximately fifty kilometres south of Maningrida in the Mann River region. Much of the meaning of the iconography is not in the domain of public knowledge and no further detail was provided by the artist. On this long narrow bark, three concentric roundels in deep red, warm gold, white, and black are placed at regular intervals down the vertical axis, each enclosed within a bold black outline that swells and tapers around it. Between and around these forms, a warm terracotta ground is covered entirely in fine rarrk, the crosshatching laid with the consistency and evenness of long practice.

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Sale 3 · Lot 9

Kay Lindjuwanga

b. 1957

Region: Arnhem Land
Community: Mumeka
Language group: Kuninjku (Eastern Kunwinjku)

Mardayin Design, 2004

natural earth pigments on bark

159 x 39.5 cm

Est. $4,000 – $6,000

Hammer $3,000

Provenance: Maningrida Arts & Culture, Maningrida, NT, Cat No. 2229-04 Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Waterloo, NSW Private Collection, NSW, acquired from the above
Artwork story: The daughter of the great Kuninjku painter Peter Marralwanga and partner of John Mawurndjul, Kay Lindjuwanga came to bark painting through two of the most significant artistic lineages in Western Arnhem Land. Marralwanga, who died in 1987, was among the defining figures of the Maningrida school and Mawurndjul's uncle and teacher. Mawurndjul, widely regarded as the pre-eminent Kuninjku artist of his generation, won four Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and was commissioned to create a work onsite at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, before its opening in 2006. Lindjuwanga was instructed in rarrk specifically to assist Mawurndjul with his bark painting, a collaborative practice not unusual among Arnhem Land artists, and developed her own independent practice. Mardayin Design concerns a major ceremony of the highest sacred significance across several Arnhem Land language groups. The Mardayin performance site is located on a large billabong covered in waterlilies, approximately fifty kilometres south of Maningrida in the Mann River region. Much of the meaning of the iconography is not in the domain of public knowledge and no further detail was provided by the artist. On this long narrow bark, three concentric roundels in deep red, warm gold, white, and black are placed at regular intervals down the vertical axis, each enclosed within a bold black outline that swells and tapers around it. Between and around these forms, a warm terracotta ground is covered entirely in fine rarrk, the crosshatching laid with the consistency and evenness of long practice.