Banduk Marika

Country/Region: Australia (view other artists)

Tribe: Language Group, Dhangu, Yolgnu

Village: Yirrkala

Aboriginal Artist, Banduk Marika was born at Yirrkala mission in northeast Arnhem Land in 1954. Like many other women bark painters in Arnhem Land, Banduk was taught to paint by her father Mawalan Marika, a noted artist, statesman and ritual leader of the Dhuwa at Yirrkala. As a child she would sit by her father's side at the beach camp of Yirrkala and watch while he painstakingly covered his bark paintings with the grids of cross-hatched sacred designs of their clan, Riratjingu, in northeast Arnhem Land. This was how she learned the stories and symbolic patterns that are now the basis of her own work.

After living in Darwin for several years Banduk moved to Sydney in 1982 where she made her first prints. Since then she has actively pursued printmaking rather than painting. Her linocuts and screenprints adhere to the pictorial traditions of her clan, and include the stories of Djankawu, the Wagilag sisters creation story and the Turtle Hunters.

The techniques she uses to cut the linoleum are similar to those used in the layered application of dhulang in bark painting and the incision of designs on wood sculptures in north east Arnhem Land. Her work is noted for its free flowing composition.

While she lived in Sydney Banduk also sat on the Indigenous Arts Board of the Australia Council for many years.

In 1988 Banduk and her family returned to live in Yirrkala. She manages Buku Larrnggay, the local Art Centre and Museum and encourages the local artists to develop new enterprises and outlets for their work. She regularly makes trips outside of Yirrkala to work with master printmakers in Sydney, Darwin, Canberra and Melbourne.

Collections

Artbank, Sydney
Australian Museum, Sydney
Campbelltown City Art Gallery, NSW
Central Collection, Australian National University, Canberra
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Surfers Paradise, Queensland
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Queensland Museum, Brisbane
South Australian Museum, Adelaide
The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, USA

Solo Exhibitions

1983 Old Meadows Gallery, Blacktown, NSW

1985 Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney

1987 Alliance Francaise, Sydney

1987 Alliance Francaise, Sydney

Group Exhibitions

1982 Woman's Festival, Seasons Gallery, North Sydney

1983 Up Cake Gallery, Fairfield, Sydney

1983 Blacktown Exhibition, Blacktown Shopping Centre, NSW

1983 Miyalku, Aboriginal Women's Art, Seasons Gallery, North Sydney

1984 Koori Art '84, Art Space, Sydney.

1984 The First National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1984 Two Worlds Collide, Artspace, Sydney

1984 Araluen Centre, Alice Springs.

1984 Miyalku, Aboriginal Women's Art, Seasons Gallery, North Sydney

1985 The Second National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1986 Urban Koories, Willoughby Workshop Arts Centre, Sydney

1986 Miyalku, Aboriginal Women's Art, Seasons Gallery, North Sydney

1987 The Marika Sisters, Australian Museum, Sydney

1987 Art and Aboriginality, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK

1987 Aboriginal Australian views in print and poster, Australian Print Council, travelling exhibition

1988 Encounters, South Australian School of Art, Adelaide

1988 Australian Aboriginal Graphics from the Collection of the Flinders University Art Museum

1989 Prints by Seven Australian Aboriginal Artists, international touring exhibition, through Print Council and Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade

1989 Paintings and Sculptures from Yirrkala, North East Arnhem Land, Lyttleton Gallery, Melbourne

1989 Aboriginal Art: The Continuing Tradition, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

1989 The Sixth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1990 Tagari Lia: My Family, Contemporary Aboriginal Art - 1990 from Australia, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, UK

1991 Aboriginal Women'[s Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

1992 Crossroads - Towards a New Reality, Aboriginal Art from Australia, National Museums of Modern Art, Kyoto and Tokyo

1992 Working in the Round, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide

1992/3 New Tracks Old Land: An Exhibition of Contemporary Prints from Aboriginal Australia, touring USA and Australia

1993 Ten years of acquisitions, from ANU collection, Drill Hall Gallery ACT

1994 Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art, National Gallery of Victoria

1995 Women's Views - Art, Science and the Environment, Australian Museum, Sydney

2010 Pacific Patterns and Dreamings, Group Exhibition, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, BC

Bibliography

Aboriginal Arts Management Association, 1990, Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1990 - from Australia (presented by the Aboriginal Arts Committee, Australia Council and Third Eye Centre, Glasgow), exhib. cat., Redfern, New South Wales (C)

Butler, R., 1986, From Dreamtime to Machine Time, Imprint 21(3-4), 10 (C)

Caruana, W., 1993, Aboriginal Art, Thames and Hudson, London (C)

Chanin, E., 1990, (ed.), Contemporary Australian Painting, Craftsman House, Roseville, NSW, Australia

Johnson, T. and Johnson, V.,1984, Koori Art '84, exhib. cat., Art Space, Sydney (C)

Isaacs, J., 1989, Aboriginality: Contemporary Aboriginal Paintings and Prints, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland (C)

Johnson,V.,1987, Art and Aboriginality, exhib. cat., Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK

Johnson, V., 1995, Is There a Gender Issue in Aboriginal Art?, Art & Australia, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 350-357.

Lendon, N., 1992, Having a History: Development and Change in the Paintings of the Story of the Wagilag Sisters, Aboriginal Art in the Public Eye, Art Monthly Australia Supplement, 13-15 (C)

1993, Aratjara, Art of the First Australians: Traditional and Contemporary Works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists, exhib. cat. (conceived and designed by Bernard Luthi in collaboration with Gary Lee), Dumont, Buchverlag, Koln.] (C)

Vogue Living, October/November, No. 5, 1994

1986, Urban Koories, exhib. cat., Workshop Arts Centre, Willoughby, New South Wales

Marshall-Stoneking, B., 1986-87, From the Centre to the Edge, Xpress 1(6), 12 (C)

Watson, C., 1990, The Bicentenary and Beyond: Recent Developments in Aboriginal Printmaking, Special Double Issue Artlink 10(1&2), 70-73 (C)

1991, Aboriginal Women's Exhibition, exhib. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Medium
Linocut print making, lithography, ochres on bark, bark painting

VIEW SHORT BIOGRAPHY