Bark Paintings in ‘Maḏayin’ Access The Sacred

‘Maḏayin’, a gemlike exhibition of 74 eucalyptus bark paintings made with natural pigments by Yolŋu artists from Australia’s Northern Territory, accomplishes a rare feat: it tells a story that is at once social, political, cultural and deeply personal. Its substantial, bilingual catalogue and wall labels featuring quotes by the artists make it abundantly clear that this account only could – and should – be told by Indigenous knowledge-holders. The show’s last stop in New York (after three other outings across the US) fills two floors of the Asia Society. Upon entering, I was immediately reminded of the Australian art museums that feature a permanent gallery, front and centre, dedicated to the continent’s First Nations artists. That approach, which goes beyond mere land acknowledgments at the door, is something other museums should heed.

The Yolŋu have painted their sacrosanct miny’tji (clan designs) on their bodies and ceremonial objects for centuries. They describe these repetitive, hypnotic motifs as maḏayin: a word that connotes both the sacred and the beautiful. Many of the works in this thematically organized show were made at the Indigenous community-led Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala, a small town where artists such as the late Gulumbu Yunupiŋu were part of a concerted, women-led effort to transform this handed-down tradition with new forms. She developed abstract works built on ganyu’ (star) shapes that create a staggering sense of depth while jettisoning the sacred designs. The exhibition includes her work Ganyu' (Stars, 2009), made up of thousands of ganyu’, which perfectly exemplifies the Yolŋu’s layered engagement with the natural world and related kinship systems (where everything and everyone is connected). ‘How can we be separate if we’re all under the same stars?’ she asks in the wall text. The work does not directly portray the sacred, but in many ways it does.

While the famous ‘Bark Petitions’ that the Yolŋu sent to Australia’s federal government in 1963 to protest bauxite mining on their land are not on view, the oldest work in the show conveys an even earlier and similarly potent example of activist art. Maḏayin Miny’tji (Sacred Clan Designs, 1935) was created by Djapu’ leader Woŋgu Munuŋgurr as a gift to the anthropologist Donald Thomson, who had travelled to the area on a peace mission after three of Munuŋgurr’s sons were sentenced to life in prison for their alleged role in a spate of murders. Making its US debut, the work is placed in a low-standing vitrine surrounded by wall-sized videos of the ocean and a Yolŋu man singing an ancient songline. It could be a monument to the Yolŋu spirit of resistance: each time they have faced oppression, they have responded by drawing upon their ancestral narratives, making something beautiful and bringing people together.

That point is underscored in a painting by Dr. Djambawa Marawili AM, one of the organizers of the show. Marawili’s Americalili Marrtji (Journey to America, 2019) represents his efforts to create connections between the Yolŋu and the United States. A cartoonish Statue of Liberty is painted at the top of the bark, yet the primary subject of the painting is a depiction of Bäru, the ancestral crocodile known for creating fire and sending it across the water to different clans. Likewise, the artist has spoken of this painting as his effort to reach out to ‘other countries across the sea’. ‘I had to carry this message out across the world,’ he is quoted as saying in the wall label, ‘for it is written in my soul and in my blood.’

‘Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala’ is on view at Asia Society, New York, until 5 January 2025

^{Main image: Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Baratjala (detail), 2018, natural pigments on eucalyptus bark, 162 × 113 cm. Courtesy: © Asia Society, New York and Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia; photograph: Bruce M. White}