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Richard Birrin Birrin – Arnhem Region

Birrinbirrin (b.1953) has been a Director of ANKAAA since 2006. He was Chairman of  Bula Bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation from 2002-2005 and on the Executive Committee from 2006-2008. He has a great understanding of the world of Aboriginal art both in terms of its production and the marketing of the art.

Birrinbirrin is from the Manyarrngu clan (Dhuwa moiety, Balang subsection). He is the son of Malangi’s older brother, George Buridna (b.1920- dec.). After his father died, Birrinbirrin was instructed in yolngu customs by his ‘second father’, David Malangi 1927- 1993.

Malangi taught Birrinbirrin to paint and to make sand sculptures for ceremony. Like Malangi, Birrinbirrin has a deeply resonant voice, singing the clan songs for his mothers (Balmbi) country.

“I started painting in the 1980s. Me, Jimmy Barnabul (1958-1994), Charlie Djota (1951-dec.), John Dhurrikayu. Right, this is your chance for painting (my father said). When Malangi painted he told (us) the stories. When I go, you can do painting for your own country and stories. Don’t paint other peoples --you got to get permission from the elders (he said).

“From my side, my father’s side, I paint only two stories: that’s Djang’kawu (Sisters) and Gurrmirringu.
When the Djang’kawu get to my country, that’s Manyarrngu country, that’s where they left their sacred dilly bag. They come from the sunrise and named all the places, all the trees and ngatha (vegetable food) on the way. They changed their language at each place where they stopped and gave yolngu all their clans, making waterholes and naming places”.

Birrinbirrin is a trained Health Worker and worked at the Ramingining Clinic during the 1980s. Well travelled in his youthful days,

Individual Exhibitions:

  • 2002, Dada: Cleansing Ceremony, to open: The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining, Australia, Asia Society Museum, New York, USA.
  • 2003, Site Specific Wall Painting to accompany: The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining, Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Taipei, Taiwan
  • 2003, Sand Sculpture to accompany: Spirit Country, Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art. Hillside Forum Plaza, outside the Hillside Gallery,Tokyo
  • 2004, Sand Sculpture to accompany: No Ordinary Place: The Art of David Malangi, National Gallery of Australia.

Select Group Exhibitions:

  • 1984, Objects & Representations from Ramingining, Power Institute [now MCA], Sydney
  • 1991, Ramingining, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
  • 2000, Yolngu Science: Objects and Representations from Ramingining, MCA, Sydney
  • 2001, The Native Born: Objects and Representations from Ramingining, Sprengel Museum, Hannover
  • 2002, Ramingining, Arte aborigen australiano de la Tierra de Arnhem, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
  • 2002, The Native Born: Objects and Representations from Ramingining, Palacio de Velazquez, Parque del Retiro, Madrid
  • 2003, Bula’bula Arts at the Virginia Fringe Film Festival, Virginia, USA
  • 2003, The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining, Australia, Asia Society Museum, New York, USA
  • 2003, The Native Born: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Ramingining, Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Taipei, Taiwan
  • 2004, Dupun, Djalumbu, Badurru-Hollow Logs from Ramingining, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
    2004, A Body of Art, Raft Artspace, Darwin
  • 2005, From Our Place to Yours, Hill-Smith Fine Art Gallery, Adelaide
  • 2005, Rarrk on Bark, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, Victoria
  • 2005, Emergence: Happening Artists from Ramingining, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne
  • 2005, Second Peter Bailie Acquisitive Art Award, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
    2005, Malangi Mob: Our Father's Stories, Raft Artspace, Darwin
  • 2006, 13 Canoes, (an Adelaide Fringe event), South Australian Museum, Adelaide
    2006, Malangi Mob (2),Indigenart, Perth
  • 2006, L’Espirit de la Terre d’Arnhem Art Aborigene du Nord de L’Australie: La Collection d’Arnaud Serval, Passage de Retz, Paris
  • 2007, Bula'bula Arts: The Next Generation, Australia Dreaming Art, Melbourne

Collections:

  • Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, Victoria
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Ramingining Collection, Sydney.
  • University of Queensland, Anthropology Museum, St Lucia.

Publications:

  • Jenkins, Susan (ed.), 2004, No Ordinary Place: The Art of David Malangi, National Gallery of Australia.
  • Mundine, Djon, 2001, The Native Born: Objects and Representations from Ramingining, Arnhem Land, MCA & Bula’bula Arts
  • Scott, Belinda, Spiritual Sand Man, Australian Art Review, Nov - Feb 2005 pp 34 -36

LANGUAGES:

Djinang / Manharrngu, English

Birrinbirrin is known as “the man of many languages” as he speaks several languages, not just from the Arnhem Land area but also from the Kimberleys and the Tanami Desert.
Information courtesy of Bula Bula Arts