Ngiya Murrakupupuni amintiya Jilamara (My Country and Art): Michelle Pulatuwayu Woody Minnapinni

Ngiya Murrakupupuni amintiya Jilamara (My Country and Art): Michelle Pulatuwayu Woody Minnapinni is a showcase of continuity and change, of old and new. Artist and curator Michelle Pulatuwayu Woody Minnapinni displays old and new works together to tell stories about family connection, Country, and culture.

Michelle Woody is a Tiwi artist from Milikapiti, a small community situated on Melville Island, located off the northern coast of Australia’s Northern Territory. Rooted in the long-standing practices of her ancestors, her work expresses important Tiwi creation stories and representations of Murrakupupuni (Country) using  jilamara (designs). Woody sources natural pigments from sacred locations on Murrakupupuni, which she then grinds and hand mixes. She applies the paint across the surface of her barks and canvases with a pwoja (ironwood comb), resulting in distinctive dotted patterns. While traditionally used in Tiwi body painting for ceremony, Woody uses the pwoja to create contemporary representations of her homeland in striking bands of white, yellow, and red. 

Ngiya Murrakupupuni amintiya Jilamara (My Country and Art) includes new work by Woody produced especially for the exhibition alongside historical Tiwi artworks from the Kluge-Ruhe collection. Bark painting, painting on canvas, tutuni (carved ironwood Pukumani pole), tunga (bark container), parmijini (arm and head bands), marriwiyi (pandanus skirt), and pwoja express a connection to ancestral practices as well as the ways in which these stories and practices change with each reinterpretation. Woody tells us, “It is important for us to look back and move forward together, tell that story and learn from each other.”