Rerrkirrwanga Mununggurr facts for kids

Rerrkirrwanga Mununggurr is a famous Australian artist. She is known for her amazing and very detailed paintings on bark. Sometimes, people call her Rerrki, which is a nickname given by her older sister Marrnyula Mununggurr.

Rerrkirrwanga is the youngest daughter of another artist, Djutjadjutja Munungurr. Her husband, Yalpi Yunupinu, also helped teach her traditional painting styles. She learned from both her father and her husband. In the 1990s, Rerrkirrwanga even finished many of her father's artworks. Today, she has permission to paint her own stories. Her large bark paintings are now in art collections both in Australia and around the world.

About Rerrkirrwanga's Life

Rerrkirrwanga Mununggurr was born in 1971 in a place called Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, Australia. Her family belongs to the Djapu clan of the Yolngu people. Many members of her family are artists. Her father, Djutjadjutja Munungurr, her older sister Marrnyula Mununggurr, and her mother Nonggirrnga Marawili are all artists in the Aboriginal community. She is married to Yalpi Yunupingu, who is an artist from the Gumatj clan.

Rerrkirrwanga was one of the first artists to make prints at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre. She is still an active artist there today. This art center is in Yirrkala, an Aboriginal community about 700 kilometers east of Darwin. It is an important art center run by the Indigenous community in Northeast Arnhem Land.

In 2012, she had her own art show called Rerrkirrwanga Munungurr & Nawarapu Wunungmurra: New Works. This show was held at Annandale Galleries. In 2014, she traveled all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico in the USA for another solo exhibition at Chiaroscuro Gallery. She has also shown her art in group exhibitions with other artists. For example, in 2018, she was part of Oceanic: Land and Sea; Gods and Men in Australia. In 2023, she joined Artists of the North Country (Arnhem Land & Beyond) at Mitchell Fine Art.

How Rerrkirrwanga Makes Art

Screen Printing

When Rerrkirrwanga worked as a screen printer at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, she learned from a master printmaker named Basil Hall. Basil Hall has worked with Aboriginal artists since 1983. He helped set up the art center in Yirrkala and taught artists how to use the printmaking equipment.

Rerrkirrwanga and her sister, Marrnyula Munungurr, made the very first lino cut designs at the Art Centre. This was when screen printing first started there. In 2015, Rerrkirrwanga created a special print called Ganybu. Ganybu are a type of fishing net that her community makes. These nets are double-sided and shaped like triangles. Even today, these nets are sometimes used, and their knowledge comes from old Dreamtime stories.

Bark Paintings (nuwayak)

At the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, artists prepare bark for painting. After the wet season, they carefully remove bark from Stringybark trees. The bark is then made wet, dried over a fire, weighed down, and left to dry completely. Artists collect natural colors for their paintings. These colors are called Ochres and earth pigments. They come in red, yellow, black, and white from special places.

The brushes used for painting are very unique. They are made from human hair tied to a stick. These brushes are called mawat. Rerrkirrwanga is known for having some of the finest mawat brushes. This helps her create her incredibly detailed bark paintings. Her paintings are so fine that they can take many weeks of careful work and focus to finish.

A special thing about Rerrkirrwanga's bark paintings is that she can paint both Dhuwa and Yirritja miny'ti. These are sacred symbols. Rerrkirrwanga received permission from her husband, Yälpi, to paint his Yirritja miny'ti. She also has the right to paint her own Dhuwa miny'ti.

On the dried bark, artists paint sacred designs that belong to them or their family groups. They use many tiny strokes to create cross-hatched patterns. Each pattern belongs to a specific place, clan, or family group. Rerrkirrwanga often paints stories and patterns related to her husband's clan, the Gumatj. The older artists at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre prefer to use natural colors and bark sheets. They do not use modern paints like acrylics on canvas.

Awards and Recognition

In 2009, Rerrkirrwanga won a major award. She won the Best Bark Painting category at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The painting that won was called Gumatj Gurtha. This artwork showed her husband's clan designs of fire. The fire is called Gurtha and is shown as trails of diamond shapes. The diamond design represents different parts of fire: red flames, white smoke and ash, black charcoal, and yellow dust. Fire is very important to the Yunupiŋu family of the Gumatj clan.

In 2010, Rerrkirrwanga was also a finalist for the TOGART NT Contemporary Art Award.

Art Shows and Collections

Since 1994, Rerrkirrwanga's art has been shown in over 30 exhibitions across Australia. In 2014, she had her own special show in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the USA.

Her artworks can be seen in several public art collections. These include:

• Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, NSW
• Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia, USA
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ACT
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Her work is also owned by many private collectors in Australia and other countries.