Midawarr Harvest

Two artists, two completely different approaches, but one abiding passion - to celebrate the natural bounty to be found in the floodplains, swamps, savannas, and woodlands of northern Australia. Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley, her adopted wwa (brother), have created a powerful body of works depicting many of the edible plants of north-east Arnhem Land.

I made this painting after eating bundjuu [bush orange]... I was thinking about how we used to eat when I was a child... I was thinking about nowadays... and about the rubbish that our children eat.

Thus, Mulkun Wirrpanda, a senior elder of the Dhudi-Djapu clan, resolved to paint the traditional food plants of her Yolu community to safeguard this knowledge for future generations. The suite of bark paintings she created is the subject of this lavishly illustrated catalogue for the National Museum of Australia's new exhibition, Midawarr Harvest: The Art of Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley. Providing a natural counterpoint to these works is a vast and beautifully detailed scroll by renowned landscape painter John Wolseley. The supporting text draws on the wealth of Yolu botanical knowledge, describing the food and medicinal plants featured in the paintings and how they are collected, prepared, and used.