Born in 1975, Guruwuy Murrinyina lives with her son at a very remote homeland in Gangan, in the Northern Territory. Gangan is a village of ten houses adjacent to a chain of billabongs, inland from Blue Mud Bay. The nearest town is a four hour drive along dirt roads. This is where her art centre is at Yirrkala. In one of these deep waterholes resides Wititj – the Rainbow Serpent which is encoded in her paintings of lillies.

Guruwuy is the daughter of deceased artist Malaluba Gumana. Guruwuy is one of her five children. Malaluba was a highly esteemed award winning artist who was celebrated for the delicacy of her hand and deft colour mixing skill with earth pigments.

Guruwuy‘s father was Yaŋalka Murrinyina of the Djarrwark clan whose homeland is Balma to the south and equally remote. Guruwuy had been assisting her mother in her paintings of Galpu clan imagery up until her mother’s sudden death in February 2020. In grief for her mother and observing spiritual protocols, Guruwuy did not paint again for over two years.

With her first rendering of her new works it became clear that she had taken a fresh approach to her mother’s theme, using a different palette and even more finely detailed compositions.