Primavera 2019: Young Australian Artists, the MCA Australia’s annual exhibition showcasing the country’s next generation of up-and-coming artists aged 35 years and younger. Now in its 28th edition, the MCA’s Primavera continues to be a vital platform for emerging Australian artists and curators to present exciting new art featuring works by Maningrida artists Rosina Gunjarrwanga & Kenan Namundja.

On the exhibition, curator Mitch Cairns, said: “The artists participating in Primavera 2019 collectively embrace cultural connection, poetic registers and the vast spectrum of painting in their articulation of new language forms.”

ROSINA GUNJARRWANGA (NT)

Born 1988, Kakodbebuldi, NT. Lives and works Mandekadjang and Maningrida, NT. Dankorlo clan. Bangardidjan subsection. Yirridjdja moiety. Kuninjku language.

Rosina Gunjarrwanga is a painter and sculptor whose work is grounded in Kuninjku cosmological belief systems. Through her practice, Gunjarrwanga refines the Wakwak (crow djang) design that originated in the Mardayin ceremony and communicates to her clan, community and broader audiences the resilience and constancy of her culture.

KENAN NAMUNJDJA (NT)

Born 1989, Maningrida, NT. Lives and works in Mankorlod and Maningrida, NT. Kardbam clan, Kodjok subsection, Yirridjdja moiety, Kuninjku language.

Kenan Namunjdja is an Australian artist whose practice is intimately connected to his country, family and knowledge of Kuninjku cosmology and law. Namunjdja draws upon the djang (totemic beings, sacred sites and ceremonial designs) of the Kardbam clan estate to create paintings and sculptures which interweave rarrk (cross-hatching) and figuration to create rhythmic compositions.

Namunjdja is the grandson of Peter Marralwanga (1916–1987), who was also an accomplished bark painter, a ceremonial leader and a key figure in the 1970s Outstation movement.

Primavera 2019: Young Australian Artists is a free exhibition and on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Level 1 South Gallery, from 11 October 2019 – 9 February 2020.