Artist: Gunybi Ganambarr

Gapu-Buḏap Gapu-Buḏap – Crossing the Water features 17 recent two- and three-dimensional works in bark and metal that reflect the innovative vision and skill of one of Buku-Larrŋgay’sthe Buku Centre’s most important and groundbreaking artists, in what is his first solo exhibition in New York.

The exhibition marks the first collaboration between D’Lan Contemporary, the artist, and Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre.

Gunybi Ganambarr is a Yolngu artist who lives and works at Gängän, near Yirrkala in north-east ArnhemLand in the Northern Territory. After working as a builder in his twenties –during which time he acquired many of the skills he now uses in his practice –he began his artistic career painting on bark and Larrakitj (hollow logs). Hehas since extended his practice to experiment and innovate with reclaimed materials found on his Country, including wood, rubber, glass, steel, galvanized iron, and aluminum. Under the tutelage of artists such as Gawirrin Gumana and Yumutjin Wunungmurra from his mother’s Dhaḻwaŋu clan, Ganambarr has assumed ceremonial authority, which also informs and influences his work.

His work has been exhibited in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Art Pudong, Qatar Museums andHarvard Art Museums, and is held in many institutional collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Art Gallery of New SouthWales, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Gapu-Buḏap– Crossing the Water will coincide with the major touring exhibition, Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Bark Painting From Yirrkala, on view at the Asia Society in New York September 17, 2024 to January 5, 2025. Curated and narrated by the Yolŋu people of north-eastern Arnhem Land, the exhibition delves deep into the history of Yolŋu art practice and provides a context for the work of its leading artist, Gunybi Gunambarr.