Tolarno Galleries announces the representation of Wanapati Yunupiŋu (born 1989, homeland Biranybirany; clan Gumatj, Rrakpala group; moiety Yirritja).

Wanapati recently presented his debut solo exhibition at the 2022 Melbourne Art Fair. “... the stunning set-up for Wanapati Yunupiŋu’s first ever solo exhibition (Melbourne or otherwise), sets a special corner of the [Melbourne Art] Fair on fire. The south looked jealously to the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Darwin late last year when the exhibition “Murrŋiny” surveyed eight artists from Yirrkala, all working in the medium of engraved “steel” (found metals). Now we get a piece of it ourselves, with Yunupiŋu’s murrŋiny paintings that overlay images of marine life (from deep and shallow water) with ancestral designs of fire. These works do appear both hot and cool. The exposed aluminium twinkles innocently, but I wouldn’t touch the murrŋiny surface; cut with a rotary drill, I bet it’s sharp as hell” - Victoria Perin, MeMO Review, February 2022.

Wanapati is the son of deceased artist Miniyawany Yunupiŋu, a senior artist and ceremonial leader within the Gumatj clan at Biranybirany. Wanapati has inherited rich ceremonial instruction from his father, and was trained while living between the outstation communities of Waṉḏawuy (his mother's clan land) and Biranybirany.

Following his father’s death in 2008, he began to paint his clan design on bark, yidaki and larrakitj. During late 2019 Wanapati began working on found and discarded street signs and metal forms, etching his sacred Gumatj clan designs and narratives into their surface using a rotary tool.

In doing so he was part of a group of artists who followed the artistic movement of fellow artist Gunybi Ganambarr. Gunybi stretched the art centre’s guiding principle which required the use of natural media in depicting sacred designs - “if you are going to paint the land you must use the land”. The elders accepted that Gunybi in presenting materials and mediums which he found on or within the land was in fact using ‘the land’. In creating this loophole he became the originator of the “Found” movement in North East Arnhemland that Wanapati continues.

The gallery will present a solo exhibition by Wanapati Yunupiŋu in February 2023, in partnership with the Indigenous art centre Buku Larrŋgay Mulka located in Yirrkala, North East Arnhemland, NT.

portrait courtesy Buku Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre