The slow move from the depiction of clan patterns to more artistic freedom has been meticulously documented in an exhibition that opened last week at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Artists from a small coastal community in east Arnhem Land were in town for the opening of Yolŋu Power: The Art of Yirrkala and to speak to change.
“The patterns in the gallery are really old, before I was born,” said senior painter Djambawa Marawili. “My father knew where all the patterns were.”
It was like having Picasso present to speak about the birth of Cubism. Djambawa spoke poignantly about the way the community has used art as a form of activism and a way of preserving knowledge.
“In the ‘70s and ‘80s came the interruptions,” he said. “People fishing did the wrong thing. They took the heads of crocodiles and put them on bait. The crocodile is one of our totems. My father really got cross.”
His father suggested that all fourteen clans record their miny’tji or patterns to protect their knowledge. These are housed in a special circular room near the beginning of the exhibition.
The theme is Walk with Us and Yolŋu is seen as a form of soft power or diplomacy in what has been called Australia’s first high culture. Visitors are invited by the clans to study the way an arts community can explore new mediums and assert their own visions.
By the ‘90s an art centre had been set up at Yirrkala and people were beginning to push for more freedom of expression, causing a major dilemma for elders and their tradition. If the pattersn were changed, would they still be recognisable?
A committee was formed and a ruling made that required all painters include identifiable clan-based designs for country in their work. One result was the Big Barks, up to five metres tall, in which size gave a sense of power to the message.
These extraordinarily detailed bark paintings became known as the Saltwater Collection of ‘98 and were used in a native title case to gain freehold over an intertidal zone where fishermen had once been seen digging up crocodile eggs.
A print studio presented another challenge for the community. Djambawa was one of the first to discover the pleasure of brilliant new colours and he eased restrictions on the depiction of miny’tji to allow adaptation to the new medium.
“We can consign ourselves to history and just paint what has been painted before or we can grab hold of this,” he told the curators last year. This insight led to one of the major innovations in the school, a concept called buwayak or invisibility.
In Source of Fire, an intricate 2005 painting by him in muted colours, a crocodile hides behind a network of lines. In Wajawa to Dhuruputjpi, a 2010 work by Galuma Maymuru, a serpent can hardly be seen as more than a blank space.
“In previous generations the crocodile would have been more prominent,” curator Kara Pinckbeck explained to AAR. “Over time Djambawa wanted the power of the designs to affect people.” This opened up the way for more abstraction by reducing the size of the totems.
Pinchbeck said the serpent can be seen “if you know what you are looking for” and conceded the painters were playing with representation. “But there is no need to make comparisons with Western art,” she said.
Buwayak did not herald a break with tradition, she points out, but created different ways of seeing and representing the world, leading to complex interpretations of miny’tji.
More contemporary works such as Lightning, 2017 by Nongirrna Marawili, include enamel paint and materials found on country, such as tin, and take general references from lightning and the mixing of fresh and salt water rather than specific designs.
Change has been gradual at Yirrkala. The power of Yolŋu lives on, even if the more sacred totems have retreated. There are 300 works from 98 artists in the exhibition that track this process.
Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery Road, The Domain (Sydney)
Exhibition continues to 6 October 2025
Entry fees apply
For more information, visit: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au for details.
Images: Ḏula Ŋurruwutthun, Untitled, 2001, natural pigments on bark, 181 x 105 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased 2001 © Estate of Ḏula Ŋurruwutthun, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala | Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Lightning, 2017, enamel paint on aluminium composition board, 150 x 100 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, purchased with funds provided by the Wendy Barron Bequest 2017 © Estate of Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala | Djambawa Marawili – photo by Rhonda Dredge | Djambawa Marawili, Source of Fire, 2005. natural pigments on eucalyptus bark, 191.0 x 84.0 cm. Purchased with funds provided by the Aboriginal Art Collection Benefactors 2005
Words: Rhonda Dredge