Ganyu (stars)

These larrakitj (burial poles) by Gulumbu Yunupiŋu, as well as her bark paintings in the Gallery’s collection, celebrate Ganyu (the stars) in the Milky Way but, more broadly, Garak (the universe).

Yunupiŋu was born in 1945 into a powerful and influential lineage. Her father, the senior law man and artist Muŋgurraway Yunupiŋu, shared with her the ancestral story of the constellations of Guthayguthay and Nhayay and the Seven Sisters. The celestial realm would thus inspire and become the primary focus of Yunupiŋu’s creative career, which began when she was in her late fifties.

Yunupiŋu obtained the wood herself and prepared each surface before patterning it with star shapes and dots, using earth pigments in dense formations to represent the vast and infinite cosmos. More than conveying her astronomical knowledge, through her work Yunupiŋu reminds us that we all originate from the stars and that we all look at the same sky and are therefore universally connected. As a painter, printmaker, weaver, educator and Yolŋu community leader, she highlighted the universality of life through her engagement with the astral realm.

Gloria Strzelecki, Associate Curator of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art