John Bulunbulun (1946-2010), Ganalbingu (Yolgnu) painter and printmaker, healer and ceremonial singer, grew up on the island of Milingimbi and in Bulman in southern Arnhem Land. He began to paint in the early 1970s, when he also began his career as an arts adviser. At the end of the 1970s he went with his wife to establish an outstation at Gamardi, where he painted with Jack Wunuwun. During this time Bulunbulun received several grants and a fellowship from the Aboriginal Arts Board and was on the Advisory Committee for the arts at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. He was one of the first indigenous artists to make limited-edition prints, and one of the first to make lithographs. A lawsuit he brought against a garment-making firm in 1989 led to the establishment of copyright protection for Aboriginal artworks. Having gained a professional fellowship from the Australia Council in 1991, in 1994 he travelled to Sulawesi with a group of Yolngu performers to enact a ceremony that re-established relations between the Galanbingu and the Makasar people. Bulunbulunn’s work, characterised by fine, shimmery crosshatching and often featuring his spiritual animal, the guwaynang or long-necked freshwater turtle, is held by all major Australian galleries and has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally.
Purchased 2005
© Martin van der Wal
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Djon Mundine OAM brings poignant memory and context to Martin van der Wal’s 1986 portrait photographs of storied Aboriginal artists.
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