Wanyubi Marika
New Work
Nowadays, Aboriginal art is booming both in Australia and overseas. Our clients come from America and Europe as well as Australia. As an art movement, Aboriginal art is unquestionably the most significant cultural contribution to the creative continuum in the visual arts to emerge from Australia.
The bark painting in Arnhemland has not been subject to the pressures associated with explosive growth in any field to the same degree as the Western Desert movement. Andrew Blake and Will Stubbs at Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts, guided by elders such as Djambawa Marawili and Wanyubi Marika, have done a remarkable job in keeping the integrity of the work protected while the artists have continued to demonstrate a profound depth and innovation, which is a tribute to the richness of the culture from where these artworks derive.
In recent years the work has been successfully exported overseas and we have all kept a keen eye on the young and emerging artists. Overall, despite the inevitable fluctuations, the market has worked in our favour and the wind has been at our backs as more and more people realize the cultural significance and the joy of collecting these works.
The most tangible outcome of all this activity is that more young Aboriginals are committing to becoming full or near full time artists. They are maturing at an earlier age and finding their own ?containers? or styles to a degree that was unimaginable even a few short years ago when market realities would have relegated them to assisting elder artists if a pragmatic place could be found for them at all. All that has changed now and we see in this exhibition the sons and grandsons of the older artists producing work of extraordinary depth and beauty.
Led by the example of their elders, who have also progressed in leaps and bounds, the younger generation of artists have a more free rein to express themselves and bring their own direction and emotion to the timeless and age old sacred stories from which the art derives. It is their voice that will be the voice of the future.
The bark painting in Arnhemland has not been subject to the pressures associated with explosive growth in any field to the same degree as the Western Desert movement. Andrew Blake and Will Stubbs at Buku-Larrngay Mulka Arts, guided by elders such as Djambawa Marawili and Wanyubi Marika, have done a remarkable job in keeping the integrity of the work protected while the artists have continued to demonstrate a profound depth and innovation, which is a tribute to the richness of the culture from where these artworks derive.
In recent years the work has been successfully exported overseas and we have all kept a keen eye on the young and emerging artists. Overall, despite the inevitable fluctuations, the market has worked in our favour and the wind has been at our backs as more and more people realize the cultural significance and the joy of collecting these works.
The most tangible outcome of all this activity is that more young Aboriginals are committing to becoming full or near full time artists. They are maturing at an earlier age and finding their own ?containers? or styles to a degree that was unimaginable even a few short years ago when market realities would have relegated them to assisting elder artists if a pragmatic place could be found for them at all. All that has changed now and we see in this exhibition the sons and grandsons of the older artists producing work of extraordinary depth and beauty.
Led by the example of their elders, who have also progressed in leaps and bounds, the younger generation of artists have a more free rein to express themselves and bring their own direction and emotion to the timeless and age old sacred stories from which the art derives. It is their voice that will be the voice of the future.