Manini Gumana, Garrapara, 2019. Earth pigments on stringybark hollow pole, dimensions variable. Courtesy: the artist and Tim Melville, Auckland.

Tim Melville Gallery presents Ngā Iwi Moemoeā: The Dreaming People, a group exhibition of painting from four Aboriginal Art Centres. The show will include work from Jilamara Arts and Warmun Art, as well as a series of works on paper and canvas from the painting programme at the Wanarn Aged Care Facility, administered by Warakurna Artists.

At the centre of the exhibition is a suite of three extraordinary Larrakitj – memorial poles made from hollow stringybark logs – by Manini Gumana, from Buku-Larrngay Mulka, Arnhem Land, NT. The artist has painted the Larrkitj with earth pigments and ochres. Their wave-like patterning refers to the saltwater currents surrounding the Djalma Bay peninsula of the artist’s country. Hollow logs like these were traditionally used as burial poles. They would be painted with designs belonging to the deceased – whose bones were placed inside – before being installed in the landscape to be worn away by sun, wind, rain and fire.

The gallery is open and practicing COVID-19 social distancing measures.

The Art Centres featured include Buku-Larrngay Mulka Centre in Arnhem Land, NT; Warmun Art in East Kimberley, WA; Warakurna Artists in the Gibson Desert, WA; and Jilamara Arts in the Tiwi Islands, just north of Darwin. Artists featured include Manini Gumana, Djrrirra Wununmurra Yukuwa, Neville McArthur, George Ward Tjungurrayi, Johnson Lane, Nola Campbell and Tjapartji Bates.