Ginger Riley Munduwalawala (c. 1937–2002), stockman and artist, was born in south-eastern Arnhem Land, in the coastal saltwater Country of the Mara people. He grew up in the bush, attending school from time to time at the Roper River Mission (later the Ngukurr Aboriginal community). He worked as a stockman and labourer in the Northern Territory for many years before moving back to the Gulf country and to Ngukurr. He began to paint in about 1986, quickly establishing a distinctive style of large-scale landscape painting in brilliant colour. In 1993 he won the First National Heritage Commission Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. After visiting London for the Aratjara: Art of the First Australians exhibition, he began to sign his paintings, following the example of European artists whose work he had seen. He was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship for 1997–98 and a major retrospective of his work was held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1997. He lived to see the Federal Court rule in mid-2000 that substantial native title rights existed on his traditional lands around the Roper, Cox and Limmen Bight Rivers near the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Gift of Helga Leunig 2013
© Helga Leunig
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