Noŋgirrŋa Marawili (born c.1939)

Family hunting, 2020

earth pigments and recycled print toner on paper

76.0 x 56.0 cm (sheet)
85.5 x 65.0 cm (frame)

bears inscription verso: Buku–Larrŋgay Mulka Centre cat. 2603-20 and Alcaston Gallery cat. AK22324

Buku–Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, Northern Territory
Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Spain, acquired from the above in 2020

This work is accompanied by certificates of authenticity from Alcaston Gallery and Buku–Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, which states:

'The artist is the matriarch of a large clan of Yolngu people, her sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughters in law and whatever English people call the spouses of ones grandchildren. In Yolngu matha these terms are well known and oft used. They live between Yirrkala, Wandawuuy, Birany Birany, Gangan and Yilpara which are the homelands of the Madarrpa, Gumatj, Dhalwangu and Djapu clans which form the matrix of her kinship.

They go to ceremony, they eke a living, they argue, they live as one but when things are good they go hunting. The troopy loads up and then disgorges up to twenty people and they head off in different directions depending on taste and talent. Some for oysters, some to spear fish, some to gather firewood and pandanus, some to go through the mangroves to get crabs. But some sit by the fire and tend it and cook and chat and sleep and mind kids. At the end of the day all will reconvene to eat stingray pate, mudcrabs, smoked oysters, magpie goose, cow, wallaby, brolga, tuna or crayfish and drink cups of tea, eat the damper cooked on the coals with lashings of bush honey or condensed milk. These are the precious times of family content and happy joking and teasing. Satisfied and secure.'