Jump to content

Baluka Maymuru

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Baluka Maymuru
Born1947 (age 76–77)
Yirrkala, Australia

Baluka Maymuru (born 1947) is an Aboriginal Australian artist from Yirrkala, Australia. He is the son of artist Näyin' Maymuru.[1] Baluka is the head of the Manggalili clan.[2]

Career

[edit]

Maymuru is a sculptor, painter and printmaker. His paintings are done on bark with natural pigments.[3] He mostly paints images that represent the saltwater homeland of Djarrakpi near Cape Shield.[4]

Maymuru contributed bark painting to the Saltwater project, which was an effort by the Yolngu people of north east Arnhem Land to affirm ownership of the saltwater coastline.[5] Those saltwater paintings were used as evidence in the Blue Mud Bay case.[6][when?]

Baluka is also one of the handful of artists to have produced work for both the 1996 John W. Kluge commission and the 2017-19 Kluge-Ruhe Maḏayin commission. Baluka curated the Manggalili clan section of the exhibition Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala and contributed the essay "Dhuwala Romdja Balanyaya Malanynha | This Law We Hold" to the exhibition catalogue.[7]

He won the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 1987 and 2006.[8]

Notable exhibitions

[edit]

Aratjara, Art of the First Australians, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, 24 April-4 July 1993 (and touring).

Miny'tji – Paintings from the East, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995.

Native Title, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1997.

Saltwater Country – Bark Paintings from Yirrkala, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, ACT, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin Uni, Perth,WA; Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW; Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne,VIC; Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs, NT; Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld; 1999-2001.

Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 3–December 4, 2022; American University Museum, Washington, DC, January 28–May 21, 2023; The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, February 22–July 21, 2024; Asia Society Museum, New York, September 16, 2024–January 5, 2025.[9]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Baluka Maymuru". Yirrkala. Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka.
  2. ^ "Artists | NGV". NGV.
  3. ^ "Maŋgalili Monuk".
  4. ^ Rodrigo, Caires; Begossi, Alpina (1 July 2015). "Art, Fisheries and Ethnobiology". Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine. 11 (1): 16. doi:10.1186/1746-4269-11-17. PMC 4506421. PMID 26187281.
  5. ^ Isaac, Jannifer; Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, eds. (1999). Saltwater: Yirrkala bark paintings of sea country: recognising indigenous sea rights. Neutral Bay: Buku-Larrngay Mulka Centre in association with Jennifer Isaacs Publishing. ISBN 978-0-646-37702-5.
  6. ^ Susan, Chenery (9 May 2015). "Homelands Future At the Mercy of Political Agendas". Age, The (Melbourne). p. 27,26. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  7. ^ Wan̲ambi, Wukun̲; McDonald, Kade; Skerritt, Henry F.; Blake, Andrew; University of Virginia, eds. (2022). Maḏayin: Waltjan̲ ga Waltjan̲buy Yolnuwu Miny'tji Yirrkalawuy = Eight decades of Aboriginal Australian bark painting from Yirrkala. Charlottesville: Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. ISBN 978-1-63681-055-3.
  8. ^ "Makmanydja | The Other Djarrakpi".
  9. ^ Wan̲ambi, Wukun̲; McDonald, Kade; Skerritt, Henry F.; Blake, Andrew; University of Virginia, eds. (2022). Maḏayin: Waltjan̲ ga Waltjan̲buy Yolnuwu Miny'tji Yirrkalawuy = Eight decades of Aboriginal Australian bark painting from Yirrkala. Charlottesville: Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. ISBN 978-1-63681-055-3.