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Lin Onus
This portrait by Yorta Yorta artist Lin Onus
shows Jack Wunuwun in a typical pose at
home at Gamardi on the Blyth River. Onus
was a frequent visitor to Arnhem Land
in the 1980s, with his role as Director of
the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia
Council. Dreaming elements have been
incorporated into the portrait, and a lone
morning star in a blackened sky overlooks
the scene. Wunuwun was known locally
as the ‘morning star painter’ and took
responsibility for its daily appearance.
‘Bulawirri/Bugaja: A Special Place’, an
exhibition at the National Gallery of
Victoria in Melbourne in 1988, brought
together the works of Lin Onus and
Arnhem Land painters; the title refers to
fresh waterholes sacred to Wunuwun’s
Murrungun people (Bulawirri) and Onus’s
Yorta Yorta people (Bugaja).
Lin Onus
Yorta Yorta people / Australia VIC 1948–96
Portrait of Jack Wunuwun
1988
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 182 x 182cm /
© Lin Onus Estate/Licensed by Viscopy, 2017
John Bulunbulun
Annual visits by Macassan fishermen to northern coastal
Australia from around 1620 (a time predating written historical
records) have been absorbed into local mythologies. In Arnhem
Land, language, ceremony and social life were influenced and
enlivened by exchanges with these visitors from southern
Sulawesi (now Indonesia), which were largely peaceful due to
shared connections and responsibilities.
John Bulunbulun
Ganalbingu people / Australia NT 1946–2010
Murrukundja Manikay (Murrukundja
Ceremonial Song Cycle)
(detail) 1993–94
Natural pigments with synthetic polymer on
canvas
/ 226 x 116cm / © John Bulunbulun/
Licensed by Viscopy, 2017
In this painting, Bulunbulun records important elements of
these interactions in a large canvas and 20 individual barks.
Repetitive geometric designs indicate lunggurrma (the north-
west wind), heralded by distinctive triangular cloud formations
indicating seasonal change. The winds filling the sails of the
Macassan perahus (boats) and aiding their journey to Marege
(Australia) are celebrated in body-painting designs, songs
and dances. The creation of the Arafura swamplands and the
domestic life of Ganalbingu people living there are also sung
and painted by Bulunbulun,
as are valuable Macassan
trade items — such as
food, weapons, tools, arak
(coconut palm flower wine)
and cloth, which became
integrated into daily life in
Arnhem Land.