Bob Burruwal
Kamarrang Bob Burruwal was a contemporary Rembarrnga Aboriginal artist from central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. He is best remembered for his bark paintings, carvings, and fibre sculptures, many of which he worked on collaboratively alongside his wife, Lena Yarinkura.
Biography
Burruwal was born in 1952 in Bolkdjam, central Arnhem Land, a region home to the Aboriginal Yolŋu people, in the Northern Territory of Australia. He was of the Dhuwa moiety, Balngarra clan, Kamarrang skin name, Rembarrnga language, and Kunidjangka country.Growing up, he practiced many Aboriginal Australian art forms creating bark paintings, dancing belts, clap sticks, and didjeridu. While his parents were not artists, he credited his father with teaching him about their cultural stories and way of life which largely influenced his work.
In the 1980s, Burruwal married innovative Indigenous Australian fibre artist and weaver Lena Yarinkura with whom he had two children: Selina Brian and Yolanda Rostron. Their shared passion for art was passed down to their children and granddaughter, Philomena Kelly. Yarinkura, who learned traditional skills of basketry and pandanus-weaving from her mother and fellow artist, Lena Djamarrayku, passed on her own ideas and techniques based on these traditions to their daughters as a means of ensuring that her stories and culture would not be forgotten once she is gone. Selina, Yolanda, and Philomena have followed in their parents and grandparents footsteps, creating fibre forms in a similar style to Yarinkura.
The pair usually lived in Yarinkura's mother's country of Bolkdjam, an outstation located about 60 kilometres south of Maningrida. The community of Maningrida is home to Maningrida Arts & Culture, one of the most successful art centres in Australia. Burruwal and Yarinkura were also known to have lived and worked in Ankebarrbirri, Arnhem Land.
Burruwal died in late May 2021.
Career
Throughout his career, Burruwal primarily worked in painting and sculpture, creating traditional works of bark painting and fibre art. Much of the inspiration for his work was drawn from cultural spirits or ancestral beings such as Wayarra and yawkyawk. Figures from everyday life such as camp dogs, feral pigs, and humans were also utilised in his work. With the use of traditional materials such as pandanus and natural ochres to create contemporary forms, Burruwal's sculptures often centred around the theme of blending innovation and tradition as a means of sharing culture.Collaboration
Burruwal collaborated on numerous pieces with his wife, Lena Yarinkura. Though many of these works were made by the both of them, museums and galleries often try to distinguish them from one another, crediting their pieces individually rather than as a collective.The innovation of Burruwal and Yarinkura's collaborative art making processes similarly extend to their artistic style and practices. Their fibre sculptures represent the transformation of tradition, taking the traditionally utilitarian practice of weaving and fibre arts and using it instead to create aesthetic figurative forms. Though Yarinkura is credited with pioneering the genre of fibre sculpture with these new techniques, Burruwal was likewise influential in their process. His teaching of traditionally male dominated practices in Maningrida such as making and painting barks and hollow-log coffins to Yarinkura allowed her to experiment and hone other areas of craft.
Along with their acclaimed fibre sculptures, Burruwal and Yarinkura also worked with the primarily Western medium of metal-casting, creating unique metal sculptures that incorporate elements of traditional fibre works. These sculptures represent animals or spirits that they either have the rights for representation to in their work or which have a connection to their clan lands. Burruwal's metal sculptures primarily depict echidnas or crocodiles as they are related to his Balngarra clan country. By developing new techniques and using new materials in their sculptures, Burruwal and Yarinkura created a way to represent their traditional culture while still remaining innovative and contemporary enough to be safely viewed by the public.