Gunybi Ganambarr
Born	April 15, 1973 Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
Occupation	Aboriginal Artist
Spouse	Lamangirra Marawili

Gunybi Ganambarr is an Aboriginal artist from Yirrkala, in the North-eastern Arnhem Land of the Northern Territory.^[1] He currently resides in Gängän where he continues to create his art.^[2] Ganambarr is considered the founder of the "Found" movement in northeast Arnhem Land, in which artists use recycled materials, onto which are etched sacred designs more commonly painted on eucalyptus bark.^[3]

Personal life

Gunybi Ganambarr was born on April 15, 1973.^[2] His homeland being Yangunbi, an area on the Western shore of Melville Bay, close to where the Giddy River meets the Arafura Sea.^[4] He is part of the Ngaymil Clan of the Dhuwa Moiety.^[2] Dhuwa being one of the two moieties that make up the Yolngu world, where everything, including people, creatures, and vegetation, are either one or the other.^[5]

Ganambarr plays the ceremonial yidaki, also known as a Didgeridoo.^[2] He spent over a decade as a construction worker and builder for the Laynhapuy Homelands Association, however returned to Gängän, his mothers homeland, later.^[2] His mother being a member of the Dhaḻwaŋu clan.^[2]

One of his influential mentors is Djambawa Marawili, whose daughter, Lamangirra Marawili, he is married to. ^[2]

Artistic Career

In his return to Gängän he worked under the authority of the artists Gawirrin Gumana and Yumutjin Wunungmurra and it was precisely this that would lead him to having ceremonial authority within the Dhaḻwaŋu clan.^[2] He took the cultural and sacred customs very seriously and has kept those elements strong throughout his art regardless of his modern and experimental approach.^[2]

Ganambarr began his career painting with natural pigments on eucalyptus bark and larrakitj, however through personal investigation and practice would begin to work with reclaimed materials, such as glass, rubber, and even various metals, pushing the boundaries on what Aboriginal art is.^[1]

In 2005 he entered the National Sculpture Prize, on invitation by National Gallery of Australia's, Brenda Croft.^[2]

In 2008 he won the Xstrata Coal Engineering Indigenous Artist Award, at the Gallery of Modern Art at Queensland Art Gallery.^[2]

In 2009 Ganambarr had his first solo exhibition at Annandale Galleries, titled Dhuwa Saltwater.^[3] While his work never strays from the tradition of the Yolnu people, he uses his western influence to innovate what it means to make bark art.^[3] The exhibition included works where the bark was incised and the remaining shavings added on after, a method not seen before.^[6] Dhuwa Saltwater, was Ganambarr's place to really show himself as a revolutionary.^[6]

In 2011 he won the West Australian Indigenous Art Award.^[2]

In 2012 he would host his second solo exhibition at the Annandale Galleries titled, From My Mind, in which he had works containing chicken wire, roofing insulation and even PVC pipes.^[7] He has on countless occasion provoked the idea of breaking the mold and instilling the question as to what is stopping Aboriginal artists from bringing in certain materials.^[7] Ganambarr with ease introduced the concept of varying textures.^[7]

In 2018 Ganambarr was awarded first prize in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for his etched aluminum work Buyku. Speaking on the work, Ganambarr said:

Artworks of this nature have multiple layers of metaphor and meaning which give lessons about the connections between an individual and specific pieces of country (both land and sea), as well as the connections between various clans but also explaining the forces that act upon and within the environment and the mechanics of a spirit’s path through existence. The knowledge referred to by this imagery deepens in complexity and secrecy as a person progresses through a life-long learning  process.^[8]

Collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales^[9]

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College^[10]

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia^[11]

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York^[12]

Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia^[13]

Exhibitions

• Young Guns II (16 April - 10 May 2008)^[14]
• Breaking Boundaries: Contemporary Indigenous Australian Art From The Collection (13 December - 25 October 2009)^[15]
• Gunybi Ganambarr, Dhua Saltwater (28 October - 5 December 2009)^[16]
• Yalmakany & Gurrundul Marawili (17 March - 17 April 2010)^[17]
• Gunybi Ganambarr, From My Mind (2 May - 16 June 2012)^[18]
• unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial (11 May - 22 July 2012)^[19]
• Stock Jewels, Artists of the Gallery (19 June - 14 July 2012)^[20]
• unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial (3 May - 5 July 2013)^[19]
• Found Gunybi Ganambarr, Djirrirra Wunungmurra & Ralwurrandji Wanambi (23 July - 31 August 2013)^[21]
• unDisclosed: 2nd National Indigenous Art Triennial (25 October 2013 - 5 January 2014)^[19]
• Celebration 25 Years of the AGWA Foundation (21 June - 1 December 2014)^[22]
• Gunybi Ganambarr, Garawan Wanambi, Naminapu Maymuru-White: Notions of Country (3 November - 2 December 2017)^[23]
• Artists of the Gallery (3 July - 3 August 2018)^[24]
• Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka: Mittji (26 September - 26 October 2019)^[25]
• Gunybi Ganambarr: Mother and Child (12 October - 1 December 2019)^[26]
• Tarnanthi (18 October 2019 - 27 January 2020)^[27]
• Steel: Art Design Architecture (7 December 2019 - 9 February 2020)^[28]
• Special Selection, International, Australian & Aboriginal Paintings & Sculpture (8 August - 29 August 2020)^[29]
• Gunybi Ganambarr, Dhanun nalma - Here we are (7 November - 19 December 2020)^[30]
• An Alternative Economics (7 May - 9 July 2022)^[31]
• Transitions (20 August 2022 - 18 July 2023)^[32]

References