Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu Landscape

In the 1970s, Nyapanyapa Yununpingu survived a near-fatal buffalo goring whilst collecting bush apples. Forty years later, in a significant departure from traditional sacred art, she created an installation called Incident at Mutpi consisting of a bark painting and a personal video narration about the attack, filmed at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala in the Northern Territory. The work won an award at the 2008 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Awards.

That night, she had a nightmare about the buffalo and vowed never to paint the beast again. This work is a painting of the native orchard where she was attacked: a gentle landscape of bush apple trees.

Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, 2017