Name

Clara Wubugwubuk

Culture

Aboriginal Australian

Gender

Female

Birth date

about 1921

Birth place

Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia View on map Close map

Occupations

Artist (painter) | Painter | Printmaker

Summary

Worked: Australia (NT). Etchings

Context

Australia

Biography

Clara Wubugwubuk

Aboriginal artist Clara Wubugwubuk from Ramingining was born in 1950 and began to paint in the early 1980s. She was taught to paint by her second father, Turkey Djipurru, one of the oldest members of the Ganalbingu group. She is married to the artist Tom Djumburpur.

Wubugwubuk is one of a growing number of women artists from central Arnhem Land who paint with increasing confidence and have a formal mastery of their artwork.

Her most commonly painted subjects include the edible tuber called Manyigani, fresh water fish from the Arafura Swamp, and the water python and file snake. Her work is characterised by her use of long sensuous lines which she has developed into an individual style of ‘rarrk’ or cross-hatching, a technique of painting common to this region. Unlike most artists from Arnhem Land she uses mainly red and yellow ochres in place of the more commonly used white and black tones.

Wubugwubuk’s crossover from bark painting into the print medium has not diminished the fineness of her line and ‘rarrk’ technique as she has continued to produce bold and unique works.

Her work is represented in the Kluge Collection in the University of Virginia in the USA. She has also exhibited in Ramingining group shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Alice Springs.

In 1997 Wubugwubuk was one of a number of artists who participated in a series of workshops held in Ramingining, by printmaker Theo Tremblay, during which they produced an important series of prints, the ‘Raminging Print Suite’, based on the Wagilag Sisters creation story.

Wubugwubuk is also employed by the Women’s Centre in Ramingining.

Biography courtesy of The Australian Art Print Network, 2001.
© Australianprints

Sub-region

Central Arnhem Land

Specific location

Ramingining

Artist’s country

Purnululu, Bungle Bungle