Baluka Maymuru

Place: Yirrkala

Born: 1947

Biography:

Baluka Maymuru (born 1947) is an Aboriginal Australian artist from Yirrkala, Australia. He is the son of artist Näyin' Maymuru. Baluka is the head of the Manggalili clan. Maymuru is a sculptor, painter and printmaker. His paintings are done on bark with natural pigments. He mostly paints images that represent the saltwater homeland of Djarrakpi near Cape Shield. Maymuru contributed bark painting to the Saltwater project, which was an effort by the Yolngu people of north east Arnhem Land to affirm ownership of the saltwater coastline. Those saltwater paintings were used as evidence in the Blue Mud Bay case. Baluka is also one of the handful of artists to have produced work for both the 1996 John W. Kluge commission and the 2017-19 Kluge-Ruhe Maḏayin commission. Baluka curated the Manggalili clan section of the exhibition Maḏayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala and contributed the essay "Dhuwala Romdja Balanyaya Malanynha | This Law We Hold" to the exhibition catalogue. He won the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 1987 and 2006.