Exhibition Insight... Anniebell Marrngamarrnga: Ngalkunburriyaymi (Yawkyawk Dreaming)
Anniebell Marrngamarrnga, Yawkyawk (Ngalkunburriyaymi), 2021, raffia. Photo: Sam Roberts
Anniebell Marrngamarrnga is a senior Kuninjku artist from Maningrida in western Central Arnhem Land. She is renowned for her large-scale, flat fibre depictions of her late-husband’s Dreaming of the Yawkyawk. Symbolising the female water spirits who live in freshwater streams and rock pools in west Arnhem Land, Yawkyawks are often closely compared to mermaids, depicted with the torso of a woman and the tail of a fish. Her practice also includes woodworking and bark painting to create Yawkyawks.
Born in Maningrida in the Northern Territory, and currently residing there, Anniebell’s practice comes from a long line of weavers. Taught by her mother Nancy Djulumba in 1995, Anniebell’s work has evolved into the unique fibre objects she is known for today. She would often work together with her husband and artist Dick Nadjolorro who would make the frames for her weavings. The complex attention to detail in her work is the result of many years of practice and refinement.
Tracking through the thick billabong to collect pandanus leaves to bring back to Maningrida, Anniebell boils the pandanus herself, dying the fibres with ash and tree roots to create shades of yellow and deep brown. Using basketry and dilly bag making techniques, she stitches the pandanus to the large frames. Her intricate weaving fills the body of the Yawkyawks, producing a scale-like finish with each stitch.
Anniebell travelled to JamFactory in May 2021 to spend time with textile and furniture designer, and Production Manager of JamFactory’s Furniture Studio, Ivana Taylor. In Taylor’s studio, surrounded by bundles of raffia and the tunes of Dolly Parton, the artwork Bindalbindal, 2021 was conceived.
Details of Yawkyawk, 2021.
Anniebell Marrngamarrnga: Ngalkunburriyaymi (Yawkyawk Dreaming) is showing in Gallery One until 28 November 2021 as part of Tarnanthi 2021, the Art Gallery of South Australia’s Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art.
Yawkyawks in Gallery One, JamFactory Adelaide.