Banduk Marika AO

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 were 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 actively pursued printmaking rather than painting. Her linocuts and screenprints adhered to the pictorial traditions of her clan, and included the stories of Djankawu, the Wagilag sisters creation story and the Turtle Hunters.

The techniques she used 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 managed Buku Larrnggay, the local Art Centre and Museum and encouraged the local artists to develop new enterprises and outlets for their work. She regularly made 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, U.S.A
Individual 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, U.K.
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
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.