Untitled (3218), 2016, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu
Lorrkon, 282cm x 22cm x 20cm
Provenance: Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney.
Exhibited: Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney 2017.
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu is the daughter of the famous cultural leader Munggurrawuy Yunupingu and sister to Galarrwuy and Mandawuy, both Australians of the Year. Her husband was the Djapu clan leader, Djiriny Manunggur. While surrounded by many prominent artists, she paints only for herself, and to share her life stories instead of the traditional Dreaming narratives.
Artist Statement
My father Munggurrawuy Yunupingu taught me how to paint. I learnt from watching him. He was always working. He said to me, ‘When I am gone you will follow behind me and paint too. Show the people—paint and work’.
That is what he said, and that’s what I do. I love working. I miss it when the bark is too dry to harvest or I can’t find carving wood or make a print. It is the way I was brought up. If I cannot paint I have to go and get fish or oysters or yams. I cannot sit and do nothing.
The Lorrkkon or bone pole coffin ceremony was the final ceremony in a sequence of mortuary rituals celebrated by the people of Arnhem Land. This ceremony involves the placing of the deceased’s bones into a hollow log, which is decorated with painted clan designs and ceremonially placed into the ground where it remained until it slowly decay over many years. The log is made from a termite hollowed stringybark tree (Eucalyptus tetradonta) and is decorated with totemic emblems.