Gaypalani Wanambi
Gaypalani Wanambi, daughter of Yolŋu artist and cultural leader Mr Wanambi, learnt her art-making skills at his side from the age of 17. After his sudden death in 2022, and working with the Marrakulu clan honey stories for which he gave her authority, her paintings on metal signage collected on Country have been highly awarded – all the while deeply vested in Yolŋu culture, philosophy and law.
Image credit: GAYPALANI WAN-AMBI, The River of Honey (front), 2025. etched found metal, 180 × 422 cm. Courtesy Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin
Gaypalani Wanambi’s 2026 Wynne Prize winner is titled The Wanambi Tree. Created in etched and spray-painted steel, its previous iteration as road signs is discernible only in the straight lines of its panelled construction, the metallic surface and the residual yellow remaining from the edges of the signage. What dominates are detailed etched markings that ripple across the surfaces, and small circular shapes that hover together, swarming over a stippled background. Within these panels is one focusing on the Wanambi tree, its multiple silhouettes evoking a central role in the cultural narrative depicted. Gaypalani said, “We are descended from the Honey spirit Wuyal. He cut the tree at Gurka’wuy and the honey flowed to the sea.” Yet in the context of the Yolŋu Found movement, and the departure this represented from previously established art-making protocols (with road signs used as source material), like Duchamp’s urinal, its choice of medium signals a significant innovation: a shift in focus that marks a departure from long-held traditions.
For Yolŋu people, artmaking dictated that painting the land be predicated on using the land. Materials were restricted to eucalypt and bark from trees felled on Country, ochres gathered, ground and mixed, and cultural narratives that belonged to the artists of this place. The first artist to look to the metal that litters the sides of roads, landscapes and townships – a byproduct of colonisation, mining and industrial activities – was Gunybi Ganambarr (b.1973), who used an old water tank as his ‘canvas’, etching ... Subscribe to read all articles in full
