Nonggirrnga Marawili

• Name — Nonggirrnga Marawili • Spouse — Djutadjuta Mununggurr • Children — 3, including Marrnyula Mununggurr and Rerrkirrwanga Mununggurr • Parents — Mundukul Marawili (father), Balungguwuy Gurruwiwi (mother) • Born — c.1939 • Died — October 2023 Nonggirrnga Marawili (c. 1939–2023) was an Australian Yolngu painter and printmaker.

Nonggirrnga Marawili was born around 1939, the daughter of the acclaimed artist and pre-contact warrior Mundukul. Marawili was born on the beach at Darrpirra, near Djarrakpi (Cape Shield), as a member of the Madarrpa clan of the Yirritja moiety of the Yolngu people. She grew up in both Yilpara and Yirrkala in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, but lived wakir', meaning her family would move frequently, camping at Madarrpa clan-related sites between Blue Mud Bay and Groote Eylandt. Marawili died at Yirrkala in October 2023.

Marawili learnt how to paint on bark in the 1980s while assisting her husband, Djutadjuta Mununggurr, with his artwork depicting his designs from the Djapu clan. During this time, they both played an integral role revitalising Yolngu art practice, which had grown stale due to repetitiveness and the tourist market. By securing permission to paint Dhuwa/Djapu clan designs through working with her husband, Marawili stands as a critical figure in breaking down gender barriers in Yolngu history, as traditionally, these clan designs were the exclusive province of men. In her practice she depicts the sacred forms from her Madarrpa heritage and the stories shared with her by her father, Mundukul, and late husband.

While she began her career in the 1990s, Marawili began painting regularly only in 2005. After encouragement from the art-coordinator Will Stubbs, she created Wititj (2005) and Untitled (2005) which demonstrate her ability to avoid painting the strictly traditional designs but rather subtly reference them. She claimed that these patterns were from her heart and mind, not depictions of sacred clan designs. Works like these demonstrate Nonggirrnga's Yolngu ability to "acknowledge that change happens on the surface [and] embrace it imaginatively and productively. But...view the principles and laws laid down by the ancestral beings as an eternal template that underpins their stewardship of their country." In 2011 she began to paint at the courtyard of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre. This gave her the ability to explore and experiment to find her personal art style. Marawili reached acclaim soon after her 2013 exhibit And I am still here held at Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne which featured fifteen paintings and four larrakitj (memorial poles). These painted works featured in this exhibit combine elements of Djapu designs, such as cross-hatching and lattice (like that of traditionally woven twigs), and Madarrpa, such as diamonds (also associated with the Yirritja moiety). These works also share the theme of hunting, seen through the subject matter of teacups, teapots, and dilly-bags. Despite traditionally-based themes, Marwili still claimed that these are designs of her own, not traditional. Madarrpa clan leader Djambawa Marawili said of these designs, "you can see the pattern [of the Madarrpa miny’tji]. They are not the patterns, but the country is still speaking through her.” In a 2013 interview she stated that the fire she painted is "just an ordinary fire, not a Madarrpa fire". In 2015 she had her Manhattan debut with her diptych Baratjala (2014) at the James Cohan Gallery in the exhibit All Watched Over.

In 2019 an exhibition titled Nonggirrnga Marawili: From My Heart and Mind was held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In his review, Sydney Morning Herald art critic John McDonald considered her "one of the most dynamic Indigenous artists at work today". The exhibition was documented in a stand-alone book of the same name. In 2020 her work was featured at the Sydney Biennale at the Campbelltown Arts Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Marawili continued to ignite public discourse on Aboriginal art when she teamed up with fellow women of the community Mulkun Wirrpanda and Dhambit Mununggurr to produce and paint 16 larrakitj for the 2021 exhibition Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala at the NGV. Traditionally used for as ceremonial bone containers, these hollow log coffins had been painted blue, magenta, and green with intricate designs to evoke the movement of ancestral beings. Their grid like placement mirrors her paintings of fish-traps that accompanied the exhibit, harking back to traditional Yolngu culture through unique new mediums. As posited by Henry F. Skerritt and Hetti Perkins, Marawili and her contributors' place outside the traditional patriarchal structure has allowed them to be the "dynamic backbone" of Aboriginal artwork in the modern day, as they work around the rules set in place.

• 2013: And I am still here. Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, Vic • 2015: All watched over. James Cohan Gallery, Manhattan, NYC • 2016-2019: Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia. Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; and the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. • 2017: Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT. • 2018-2019: Nonggirrnga Marawili: From My Heart and Mind. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW. • 2020: By the Strength of Her Skin. Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, Virginia. • 2020: Nirin: The 22nd Biennale of Sydney. Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW. • 2021: Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala. National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria. • 2022-2025: Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala. Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center; Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia; and the Asia Society in New York City

Marawili's works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

• Art Gallery of New South Wales • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory • National Gallery of Australia • National Gallery of Victoria • Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia