Wolpa Wanambi

Wolpa Wanambi is the youngest daughter of one of the best known Yolngu artists of the 1980s Dundiwuy Wanambi (1936-1996) and learned to paint under his instruction.. Wolpa assisted in all of the major works produced by her father during the 1990s including the work that received the 1994 NATSIAA award for Best Bark Painting and the Wagilag carvings 1995-96 in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

Most of this work was done at Dundiwuy’s small outstation community of Gurka’wuy. Dundiwuy was one of the main collaborators with Ian Dunlop in the Yirrkala Film Project (22 films made with the Yolngu between 1970-1985). This Project captured the themes of the era where the advent of industrialised Bauxite mining prompted the Homeland Movement away from Yirrkala.

Wolpa appears as a young girl under her English name of Daisy in ‘Djungawan at Gurka’wuy’. In 1996, the year of his death, Dundiwuy stated that a major bark painted entirely by Wolpa under his instruction be formally attributed to her. In 2000, Wolpa won the National Indigenous Heritage Art Award First Prize. She had a very successful sell out show at Niagara Galleries in Melbourne but has not had a subsequent show because of the very slow and patient rate of production.