Billabong at Milmilngkan

John Mawurndjul is one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, a master bark painter with a career spanning forty years. His inclusion in exhibitions and major commissions has taken him to France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Japan. Born in 1952, Mawurndjul is a Kuninjku Elder who lives and works between his homeland of Milmilngkan and the township of Maningrida in central Arnhem Land.

He is renowned for his mastery of rarrk (cross-hatching) using earth pigments. These are sourced from kunred (sacred sites) within Kuninjku Country, ground and then painted onto the skin of stringybark trees (Eucalyptus tetrodonta), using as his paintbrush the end of a finely split stem of manyilk, or sedge (Cyperus javanicus).

Billabong at Milmilngkan represents the sacred waterholes and hidden underlying waterways, where Ngalyod the Rainbow Serpent lives and travels. Intricate cross-hatching in white, yellow, red and black sits within a complex pattern of ever-shifting lines, while three circular forms take shape through the centre of this compelling work. Mawurndjul is constantly reinventing his technique to portray the ancestral power and the spirit beings that populate these sacred sites.  

Nici Cumpston, Senior Curator, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art / Artistic Director Tarnanthi