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]

Baluka Maymuru
Born1947 (age 76–77)
Yirrkala, Australia

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 & Ethnomedicine. 11 (1): 1–8.
  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 assocition 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.