Word: rarrk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...More than anyone else, John Mawurndjul has changed the face of bark painting. Adapting the cross-hatch technique of body painting known as rarrk, the son of a shaman's increasingly virtuoso barks have taken what was previously seen as a craft to the exalted realm of fine art: last year, he was accorded a career retrospective at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland. If Mawurndjul is considered the Michelangelo of rarrk, then the MQB is his Sistine Chapel. Across 150 sq m of ground-floor ceiling, his sacred billabong at Milmilngkan ripples and sings; the rarrk's kinetic power...
...Aboriginal art to the Middle East, when "Identity and Country: Contemporary Art from Maningrida" opened at the La Fontaine Centre of Contemporary Art in Bahrain. "They were very curious," says Kohen. "They didn't get what they were expecting." No dot paintings or didjeridus; just the metamorphic power of rarrk. Her most heartening response? " 'Where's the Aboriginal art?' You're just like, 'Well, it's all around...
...What electrifies this artistic forest is the use of rarrk. This distinctive cross-hatching is tartan for the Kuninjku 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...
...Mawurndjul is the Michelangelo of rarrk. "Through some kind of magic I am a chemist man," he has said...
| 1 |