Mayilimiriw

Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu is perhaps the most influential artist working at Yirrkala today who has distinguished herself by deliberately avoiding the clan stories and designs she has inherited to create works that explore aspects of the everyday and the process of making art itself.

The larrakitj (hollow log) 'Mayilimiriw' is drawn from Yunupiŋu's 'mayilimiriw' series, which can be directly translated as 'meaningless'. Yunupiŋu has used this title for a series of works she has produced since 2009 and in which she jokingly counteracts the almost accepted convention of meaning being embedded within Yolŋu art. Indeed this is the norm and Yunupiŋu is perhaps the first Yolŋu artist to consciously eliminate this aspect from her work allowing her to more freely focus on line, form and colour. However, in doing this she refers to the process of painting with natural pigments and the application of cross-hatching, which she renders in an energetic and rhythmic manner.

Yunupiŋu's style of painting is in stark contrast to the highly geometric works being produced by most artists working through Yirrkala today and to the tightly composed paintings produced by artists in the past such as Yunupiŋu's father, Muŋgurrawuy Yunupiŋu.