John Mawurndjul is a highly regarded Australian contemporary Indigenous artist. He uses traditional motifs in innovative ways to express spiritual and cultural values, and is especially known for his distinctive and innovative creations based on a traditional cross-hatching style of bark painting techniques.
Life
Mawurndjul was born on 31 December 1951 in Mumeka, a traditional camping ground for members of the Kurulk clan, on the Mann River, about south of Maningrida. He is a member of the Kuninjku people of West Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, and grew up with only occasional contact with non-indigenous people and culture. he was living a traditional lifestyle at an outstation near Maningrida, still painting and hunting.
Art
He was tutored in rarrk, a traditional painting technique using fine cross-hatching and infill, in the 1970s by his uncle Peter Marralwanga and elder brother Jimmy Njiminjuma and began producing small paintings on bark. During the 1980s he began producing larger and more complex works, and in 1988 won a Rothmans Foundation Award. During the 1990s his work was included in major exhibitions dealing with Aboriginal Australian art, such as Dreamings in New York, Crossroads in Japan, Aratjara: Art of the first Australians in Germany and the UK, and In the heart of Arnhem Land in France. In 2000, Mawurndjul's work was amongst that of eight individual and collaborative groups of Indigenous Australian artists shown in the prestigious Nicholas Hall at the Hermitage Museum in Russia. The exhibition received a positive reception from Russian critics, one of whom wrote: "This is an exhibition of contemporary art, not in the sense that it was done recently, but in that it is cased in the mentality, technology and philosophy of radical art of the most recent times. No one, other than the Aborigines of Australia, has succeeded in exhibiting such art at the Hermitage. Also in 2000, his work was featured at the Sydney Biennale. His work was subsequently the subject of a major retrospective in Basel, Switzerland and in the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Germany. In 2018-2019 an exhibition of his work was shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and afterwards as part of Tarnanthi 2018 at the Art Gallery of South Australia. This was the first major exhibition of his work in Australia.
Legacy
Mawurndjul has been a major influence on contemporary Kuninjku artists, and he has tutored his wife, Kay Lindjuwanga and daughter Anna Wurrkidj, who are now accomplished painters. He has created a whole school of artists and led an Australian art movement.
