Baratjala

This is not for ngäpaki (non-Yolngu), the stories of the water and the rock are there for family to know. I can’t talk of the deeper story, because it is only to be told by men… I will draw flames, but of the burned areas where the land is smooth and burned. And I will paint the water, just the water. It will come running up and splash upon the rock. It will be just the water and bubbles that splash. Yes, this is the meaning of the water. - Nonggirrnga Marawili

Nonggirrnga Marawili painted key subjects—fire, water, lightning, rock— drawn from the elemental substances and transformative forces of the natural world. In the tropical climate of northern Australia, fire and water animate the seasons and bring life to the environment—causing the bush to burn, bringing monsoonal rains, summoning lightning and storm clouds: all vital events that sustain life. This vibrant painting in pinks and white refers to the rocks and waters of Baratjala where, as a child, Nonggirrnga camped with her father, the renowned Madarrpa artist and warrior Mundukul Marawili. Baratjala was an anchorage point for sailors from Makassar (present-day Sulawesi) when they camped to prepare trepang (sea cucumber). It is also near to the estuarine estate of Baraltja, where the lightning snake Mundukul is aroused by the monsoonal overflow of freshwater into the brackish water that builds up during the dry season. Sensing the mix of salt and freshwater, Mundukul the ancient serpent rises up high on his tail spitting formidable bolts of lightning into the sky. The remnants of these bolts of lightning can be seen throughout the corpus of Nonggirrnga’ bark paintings in the networks of narrow, parallel lines that track across her bark surfaces, while the trails of dotted lines evoke the spray of saltwater crashing off the rocks.

Nonggirrnga Marawili was a highly respected senior artist in her community, and a prolific producer of art. Her work includes bark paintings, memorial poles (larrakitj) and limited edition prints. She first learned to paint by assisting her late husband Djutjadjutja Munuŋgurr but went on to become a prominent artist in her own right, leading a group of female artists from Yirrkala who have inherited designs from their fathers and grandfathers that reflect the culture, history and environment of their Country in northeast Arnhem Land. Marawili began her career as a printmaker, producing a substantial body of prints following the opening of the Yirrkala Print Space in 1995. From 2005, she expanded her focus to bark painting, in which she excelled. In her paintings, she modified the distinctive diamond-shape miny’tji designs of her clan from a more formal string of diamonds that flow like ribbons into a more irregular grid-like pattern. Nonggirrnga Marawili appeared to be testing the ground for what would after 2011 become a formal strategy that maintained the allusion to clan designs, while providing her with a launching pad for increasingly creative departures from these templates.

Her next significant formal breakthrough was the increased use of negative space, a move that reached a spectacular crescendo in the series Lightning and the Rock (2019.372.1-.4). During this period, Marawili began a highly fruitful exploration of the theme of "lightning" that continues in this painting. In the later years of her life and artistic practice, she continued to innovate, experimenting with color and form as well as different media (including large found hardboards and aluminium panels). She also developed an original and distinctive style of pink barks utilizing the ink from discarded magenta ink cartridges. Painting large-scale works, alongside a return to printing, facilitated an extremely expansive and fluid style grounded not in the production of neat or pristine works, but in a bid to capture the spirit and energy of a long life lived on Country, observing dynamic seasonal changes and absorbing the elemental forces of her surroundings. This intent is expressed in bold colors that include an exciting, bright palette of crimsons, magenta and hot pinks—judiciously balanced with a highly reflective finish with both matt and gloss paints. This painting presents just the surface of what is a deeper story, revealing only what is appropriate for a non-Yolngu audience to see and know.