ṈOŊGIRRŊA MARAWILI

Ṉoŋgirrŋa Marawili was born on the beach at Darrpirra north of Cape Shield on the oceanside. She was one of the many children of Mundukul the Madarrpa warrior (c.1890-c.1950). Mundukul (Lightning Snake) is also the name of the serpent (also known as Water Python, Burrut’tji), which lives deep beneath the sea here. A revered leader, he had many wives belonging to the Marrakulu, Dhudi Djapu, and Gälpu clans. Ṉoŋgirrŋa’s mother was Buluŋguwuy, one of his four Gälpu wives.

The closely related mothers, brothers and sisters constituted a nomadic working group of more than fifty people, living a disciplined but bountiful existence as they travelled between Groote Eylandt and the mainland in a flotilla of canoes. They went to Yilpara. They went to Djarrakpi. But their special place was Guwaŋarripa (Woodah Island) and their special spot on the mainland was Baratjala, a Madarrpa clan estate adjacent to Cape Shield. These are cyclonic, crocodile infested waters with huge tides and ripping currents.

Ṉoŋgirrŋa’s designs show the rock that is set in deep water between the electric ‘curse’ that the snake spits into the sky in the form of lightning, and the spray of the sea trying to shift the immovable rock foundation of the Madarrpa. Sometimes depicted are duŋgurŋaniny, barnacles that grow on the rock. It is said that when the serpents ‘spit’ lightning (guykthun) it’s sacred power hits the seaspray rising from where it has just smashed into the rock.

The energy that Ṉoŋgirrŋa captures in her artworks match that in real life during the Top End wet season. Also depicted are rock oysters and barnacles which, according to Ṉoŋgirrŋa, nibble on the feet of the oyster gatherers whilst they perch atop these rocks.

In late 2017, Ṉoŋgirrŋa made an etching with Basil Hall at Yirrkala which used a brilliant fuschia as a component colour. Just as the great Emily Kngwarreye created her magnificent 8 metre masterpiece, Big Yam Dreaming, held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, after first carving black and white lines into linoleum with master printmaker Theo Tremblay, Ṉoŋgirrŋa used pink in this master work after working with Basil Hall.

Ṉoŋgirrŋa won the Bark Painting Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 2015 and 2019. Her solo exhibition 'From My Heart and Mind’ and its’ accompanying publication in 2018, was followed by her participation in the Biennale of Sydney, in 2020.