• 13. Buluwana
  • 13. Buluwana
  • 13. Buluwana
  • 13. Buluwana

Melba Gunjarrwanga

13. Buluwana

  

"Buluwana is a good spirit woman living at Ngandarrayo, close to Yikarrakkal. I’ve painted her with karrbarda (long yam) and dillybags. When Buluwana would go hunting, she’d collect bush foods, she’d walk and look for yams. She’s a very old lady. She’d carry her big dillybag on her forehead. My husband would paint her too. She just rests in the rock nowadays."

  • Ochre and Ink on Arches Paper
  • Dimensions: 77 x 57cm (unframed), 930 x 74cm (framed)
  • Cat No. 1833-24


Kuninjku artist, Melba Gunjarrwanga, was born in 1959 at Maningrida in the Northern Territory. Melba is a skilled printmaker, sculptor, weaver and bark painter represented by both the Bábbarra Women’s Centre and Maningrida Arts and Culture. Over the last decade, Melba has taken part in multiple group exhibition across Australia and the world and her works have been presented by Maningrida Arts and Culture and within their collective shows. Her work is also held in the collections of Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Victoria and National Gallery of Australia and The Australian National University Collection. Melba has also featured as one of the emerging artists in a group exhibition, Báb-barra: Women’s Printing Culture at The Cross Art Projects (2017)


Maningrida Arts & Culture is a pre-eminent site of contemporary cultural expression and art-making, abundant with highly collectable art and emerging talent. Through their homelands resource organisation, Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, artists turned an art trade that began just over 50 years ago into a multi-million dollar arts and cultural enterprise.

Maningrida Arts & Culture supported hundreds of artists on their homelands, more than 20 artworkers, held 20 exhibitions annually, won prestigious awards, and enjoyed the international fame and success that the boom in the Aboriginal art market of the 1990s and 2000s enabled. 

We pack all artworks securely to protect during shipping. Items valued over $100 are insured for damage during transit. Artworks less then one metre are generally sent insured via Australia Post, unless they are particularly fragile. Artworks longer than one metre are sent via Pack n Send.