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John Mawurndjul Survey 1979-2009By Apolline Kohen‘Everything old is new’By Suzette Wearne andBundine ‘Thomas’ NabegeyoJohn Mawurndjul and his wifeKay Lindjuwanga travelled toCanberra to attend a retrospectiveof Mawurndjul’s work that spansthirty years of his artistic career.Presented at the AustralianNational University Drill HallGallery, the exhibition featuresbark paintings and etchings he hasproduced in the past few years.The artworks are drawn from bothpublic and private collections and reflectMawurndjul’s artistic development andhow he has revolutionised Kuninjkuart. The exhibition comprises earlysmall barks depicting animals suchas kangaroos, the more complexmythological figures he did in thelate 1980s and early 1990s and hisrecent works concentrating on abstractrepresentations of important places onhis clan estate.In addition to these works, over twentyetchings created between 2004 and2007 are shown together for thefirst time. These works reveal howMawurndjul has fully embraced therange of possibilities offered by this newmedium to express his favourite subjectmatters in a different way. The exhibitioncatalogue John Mawurndjul. Survey1979-2009 accompanies the show.The exhibition attracted a large crowdat the opening. It was also a goodopportunity to launch the book BetweenIndigenous Australian and Europe: JohnMawurndjul published by AboriginalStudies Press. This book grew outof an international symposium heldat the Museum Tinguely in Basel in2005 on the occasion of the exhibition – John Mawurndjul.Journey through time in NorthernAustralia.Contributors to the book include JonAltman, Sally Butler, Apolline Kohen,Howard Morphy, Judith Ryan, LukeTaylor and Paul S.C. Taçon. Themonographs – JohnMawurndjul. Journey through timein Northern Australia and BetweenIndigenous Australian and Europe:John Mawurndjul are available fromManingrida Arts & Culture, www.maningrida.com.Left: John Marwundjul with Drill Hall GalleryDirector, Ms Nancy Sever. Photo: A.Kohen.Below: John Marwundjul works, Drill Hall Galleryinterior. Photo: A.Kohen.The next wave of West ArnhemLand painters at Injalak Artsworked in earnest on paperand bark for the annual‘30 Under 30’ exhibition atMossenson Galleries in Perthand Melbourne. Several ofInjalak’s most talented youngartists were selected for thisexhibition in May/June whichprovides a survey of the artistryof thirty Indigenous artists underthe age of thirty, in communitiesand urban centres throughoutthe country.Despite growing up in times ofsustained contact with ‘balanda’(non-Aboriginal people), in acommunity with many of thedistractions associated withcontemporary life, the youngerKunwinjku painters at InjalakArts use their art to assert theimportance of ancestral storiesand traditional lifestyle. It is largelydue to the unique ‘apprenticeshipsystem’ supported by Injalak Artsthat artists like Joey Nganjmirra,Maath Maralngurra and TimothyNabegeyo are able to do this. Joey,for instance, learnt to paint underthe guidance of an artist recognizedas one of Injalak’s most senior andrespected, Thomson Yulidjirri.Each of the artists involved hasenjoyed painting on larger thannormal scale works for ‘30 Under30’, and has taken the opportunityto develop and show their individualstyles. Maath Maralngurra, son ofGabriel Maralngurra and grandsonof Bardayal ‘Lofty’ NadjamerrekAO, expresses his pedigree with adepiction of Ngalyod, The RainbowSerpent in his own striking anduncompromised way. Joey hasrendered abstract designs fromthe lorrkon (hollow log) used for8 Arts Backbone – EXHIBITIONS Volume 9: Issue 1 June/July 2009