The artist, activist and leader of the Madarrpa clan took home the top prize from more than 280 entries and 68 finalists

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The artist, activist and leader of the Madarrpa clan, Djambawa Marawili AM, has taken home the prestigious National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art award (Naatsia) for a bark painting he says was “written in my soul and in my blood”.

The prizes were announced at an outdoor event in Darwin on the grounds of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

This year is the 36th Natsiaa, which awards $50,000 to the overall winner and $5,000 to the winner of each of the six artwork categories. The final seven artworks were chosen from more than 280 entries and 68 finalists.

Marawili previously won a Natsiaa prize 23 years ago, also for a bark painting.

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The painting, Journey to America, depicts five different states of water in his home country of Blue Mud Bay, and tells the story of his trip to the US promoting Yolngu philosophy, reaching out from his homelands to the Statue of Liberty in New York.

“Everyone can see that I have confidence I have to carry in my soul and in my blood, to reach out to another nation, to another world, with our sorrow, with our love peace and joy,” he told Guardian Australia.

He felt bad that his father and other elders had died and he was still here, but it was important for surviving artists to share the knowledge of the country and “to represent our clan groups and our tribes and our countries”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Djambawa Marawili’s Journey to America. Photograph: Merinda Campbell/Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Marawili has been involved in key Indigenous rights campaigns, including producing the 1988 Barunga statement, the 1992 royal commission into deaths in custody, and he coordinated the Blue Mud Bay land rights case which resulted in a high court ruling that Indigenous people own the land between the low and high water marks.

“The patterns and design [in my painting] ... comes from where we come from, from Blue Mud Bay,” he said.

“This is part of reaching out to the other world. Here in Australia they can’t understand and take seriously what we wanted to do – the sustainability to maintain the country and the sea.”

Marawili said showing his work in a gallery helped people see it from his people’s perspective, and take notice.

Djumbuwa’s award was “a long time coming” after winning the bark painting award in 1996, said the Museum and Art Gallery’s curator, Luke Scholes. He praised the breadth of work across all the entries.

“Through your art, not just Australia but the world is listening,” he said.

“We value your hard work, we acknowledge the difficulties in your lives, and we, like you, we wait. We wait for the day our nation comes to terms with what it means to be Australians. Your art shows us a way.”

Natsiaa judge and director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Rhana Devenport, said Marawili’s work had “such power” and spoke “generationally, philosophically and internationally”.

“And such resilience, and such innovation, and I think that’s what we’re seeing here in this exhibition,” she said. “An incredible flowering of innovation, of imagination, and of storytelling.”

Titus Nganjmirra from Gunbalanya in Western Arnhem, won the emerging artist award for his portrait of the Queen as she appears on banknotes, juxtaposed with the first flag to be planted on Australian country (near Sydney) and cultural images of the first people, the Nayuhyungki stone country beings.

In the Kunwinjku language the word for both money and stone is “kunwardde”.

Gunbalanya is one of Arnhem Land’s more accessible communities and the local people run tourism ventures, including rock art tours.

“In Arnhem Land people come and we share stories, stories from showing them art on French paper or even a bark from a eucalyptus tree which we go and get in February. Sometimes we take people and show them rock art and share the story with them. When we come down from the hill we leave the stories on top. It’s just a relationship with Indigenous and non-Indigenous, we can all learn together,” Nganjmirra said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Titus Nganjmirra won the emerging artist award at this year’s Naatsias. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

“A painting like this is important because [the painting around the Queen] it’s been there a long time for us.”

Nganjmirra said he had to get approval from elders to draw his grandfather’s or grandmother’s country, but it was “my choice to show her majesty”.

Malaluba Gumana, a Dhalwang woman from the Gangan outstation in north-east Arnhem Land, won the Wandjuk Marika 3D award for a dominating trio of poles painted with Gumana’s renowned “marwat” or crosshatching, using a brush of fine human hair.

“It’s a Galpu painting, my mother’s clan … I teach my granddaughters how to help me get the [colour], we get the stone,” she said.

“I drive three hours to the art centre [from Gangan] and sell my paintings … I can do the shopping then go back and do another one.”

It is her second win – she won the best bark painting in 2013.

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Kaylene Whiskey, from Indulkana in South Australia, won the general painting award for her irreverent depiction of the Seven Sisters dreaming story/tjukurpa, through seven strong women: Wonder Woman, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, the Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy, Catwoman, Dolly Parton and Tina Turner.

“They’re hanging out on the Iwantja Arts sign, hiding from the cheeky wait [man],” Whiskey said.

Gutinjarra Yunupingu, a hearing-impaired artist from Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land, won the multimedia award for his video work telling his story of communicating his cultural identity and connection through Yolngu sign language, something all Yolngu children where Yunupingu lives are taught from a young age.

Also from Yirrkala, Nonggirrnga Marawili won the best bark painting for her work showing the ancestral lightning strike – an electrical curse – on the Madarrpa clan estate of Baratjula. A senior woman working from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka arts centre, Marawili has introduced unexpected colours into her traditional work by recycling the “found material” of magenta printer toner.

The winner of the general works on paper award, Mr Gardiner, died last year and was represented by his daughter, Sheila Gardiner.

“When I first walked in the gallery and saw the art it was very strong,” said judge and Tiwi artist and cultural leader Pedro Wonaeamirri.

The chief executive of the Natsiaa’s major sponsor Telstra, Andrew Penn, said the exhibition showed the most important contemporary Indigenous art in Australia today and that there was an “urgent need to amplify Indigenous voices”.

“It is critical that we continue to celebrate and preserve the diversity of Indigenous culture by supporting new, emerging talent and leading artists from across the country,” he said.