Paul Nabulumo
Born: 1971
Region: Central Arnhem Land
Community Centre: Maningrida
Outstation: Kubumi, Yikarrakkal
Language Bloc: Bininj kunwok
Language: Eastern Kunwinjku
Local Group (clan): Kulmarru
Subjects and Themes:
Bark painting, ochres on bark, carved and painted wooden sculpture
Exhibitions:
2018 - Art Paris Art Fair, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2017 - Australian Indigenous Art, Sculpture Park Wesenberg, Kunstler Bei Wu, Mecklenbourg, Germany.
2017 - Parcours des Mondes, Arts dAustralie Steuphane Jacob, Paris, France.
2017 - Art Paris Art Fair, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2017 - Art Elysees, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2017 - Bourgogne Tribal Show, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Besanceuil, France.
2016 - Art Elysees, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2016 - Maningrida Arts, Paul Johnstone Gallery, Darwin, NT.
2016 - Parcours des Mondes, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2016 - St-Art / 20eme anniversaire, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Strasbourg, France.
2016 - Dreamtime - Temps du Reve, Musee dArt Contemporain Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France.
2014 - Spirits, Paul Johnstone Gallery, Darwin, NT.
2012 - 29th Telstra NATSIAA Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
2011 - 28th Telstra National Aboriginal Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the NT, Darwin.
2010 - Maningrida 2010, at the Maningrida Gallery, Darwin.
2008 - Parcours des Mondes, Arts dAustralie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
2005 - After Crossing Country: A Survey of Barks from Maningrida, Indigenart – The Mossenson Gallery, Perth;
Spirit Beings and Lorrkons, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Maningrida NT: Bark Paintings and Carvings,
Hogarth Galleries, Sydney; Rarrk! Flowing on from Crossing Country, Annandale Galleries, Sydney.
Select Bibliography:
Smee, S. Shows take snapshot of now, The Australian, 25 November 2005
Notes:
Paul Nabulumo is the son of Mick Kubarkku, an artist well known for his paintings of the full and new moons,
the sun and the stars. Although Paul paints a range of images the images that were handed down from his
father refer to a sites in the clan estate, at a place called Dirdbim which literally means 'image of the moon'.
The site is a large unusually round hole in a sandstone residual on the plain not far from the Mann River.
The large hole is said to be the full moon created by the rainbow serpent 'ngalyod' who pierced the rock in times
of the 'Dreaming' and left the shape of the full moon. Dirdbim is not far from the artists' residence today at
Yikarrakkal and the area is rich in rock art and old camping sites. There are also numerous human remains,
bones wrapped up in paperback, lying in clefts of sandstone shelters.
The Eastern Kunwinjku people of the district have always used Dirdbim as a mortuary site because of the
mythological history of the area which is connected to the moon story. This is because the mythology of the
moon ancestor relates how an adversary, the spotted quoll, argued with the moon over the fate of humanity.
The quoll decided he would die once and once only, however, the moon took his place in the sky to be reborn
each lunar month. The techniques of bark painting are usually handed down from one generation to the next,
as are the rights of each artist to a particular site or 'Dreaming'. Paul continues to develop and evolve in his father's image.
