Word: barks
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...which, as curator Hetti Perkins puts it, "morphed from rock walls to gallery walls," should have begun in and around Maningrida, "the place where the Dreaming changed shape." Less than 150 km west, at Oenpelli/Kunbarlanja, in 1912, anthropologist Baldwin Spencer first encouraged Aborigines to put their rock designs on bark in exchange for tobacco. It would be a further 50 years before the Kuninjku language group began to gather at Maningrida settlement. Here a young John Mawurndjul was treated for leprosy, and in 1963, with the Maningrida Social Club, a fledgling art industry began. But the deeply traditional Kuninjku were...
...forest trying to connect the names. Start with the most mischievous of mimih by the late Crusoe Kuningbal, then jump to the mimih of his late wife Lena Kurinya, daughter Melba Gunjarrwanga and son Crusoe Kurddal. Next, leapfrog to the Lorrkkon logs of Ivan Namirrkki, son of the late bark pioneer Peter Marralwanga, then to those of Namirrkki's sister Kay Lindjuwanga, her husband Mawurndjul, and his siblings James Iyuna and Susan Marawarr...
...clan. It varies from the rougher markings of former rock painter Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek to the increasingly refined rarrk of Mawurndjul, who paints shimmering spiderwebs of yellow, black and red. The technique began with Yirawala (1903-1976), who in the '60s first transposed men's ceremonial body designs to bark. The elaborate cross-hatching also relates to the weaving of the giant barramundi fish traps, mandjabu...
...bark, which he personally harvests and "stretches" over fire and under rocks, that's been the vehicle for his magic carpet ride. Last September, the wily, wild-haired sometime hunter, 52, won the $A30,000 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria. While a bark painting by Central Arnhem Land's David Malangi inspired the design of Australia's first dollar note, the genre hasn't always been a license to print money. When Maningrida barks were presented in Sydney in the early '70s, they were derided as "rubbish." It's taken European eyes to turn them...
...challenge for curators with their fragile ochers and buckling frames, barks are impossible to restrain, and it's to her credit that Hetti Perkins has liberated many in the show from their 20th century backing boards. It's the perfect medium for the constantly metamorphosing creatures that inhabit them, from yawkyawk mermaid spirits to the rainbow serpent, Ngalyod. Indeed, so warped is the bark of James Iyuna's 2002 serpent that it threatens to lift off the wall. But what is a nightmare for conservators is a thrill for spectators...