Naminapu Maymuru-White is a Senior Yolŋu Elder with a contemporary art practice spanning painting, carving, printmaking, weaving, and batik. Maymuru-White’s iconic miny’tji designs reflect the Yolŋu concept of Milŋiyawuy, which simultaneously represents the Milŋiyawuy River that snakes across Maŋgalili Country and the celestial Milky Way. Her bark paintings host sprawling rivers of stars that twist and turn across the surface to convey an immersive view of the constellation against the night sky. Maymuru-White depicts Milŋiyawuy from above and below, from the sky and the earth, to reflect the convergence of the physical and ancestral realms. She has explained that each star represents Maŋgalili souls past, present, and future. Delicately rendered with sacred gapan (white ochre), a marwat (traditional fine brush made with human hair), and a wooden skewer, Maymuru-White’s star- filled sky and riverscapes emphasise a multidimensional understanding of Country; the inextricable link between the ancestral and lived worlds across generations, time, space, and place. Maymuru-White’s paintings pulsate with energy and give layers of form and meaning to the cyclical concept of life and death.
This is the first time the work of Naminapu Maymuru-White is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Jessica Clark
