Lena Yarinkura

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Maningrida describes Lena Yarinkura as a senior Kune artist renowned for her ambitious and highly distinctive pandanus and paperbark fibre sculptures. She was one of the first Arnhem Land women to move beyond conventional fibre forms and develop fibre as a distinctly sculptural practice. Her innovative approach has made her an important figure in contemporary Australian fibre art. Yarinkura is particularly celebrated for her representations of Yawkyawk spirit beings, animals and ancestral figures. She constructs her forms using techniques related to the making of dilly bags and fish traps, building pandanus structures into complex three-dimensional forms before applying ochre pigments. Maningrida emphasises experimentation and invention as central to her practice; Yarinkura herself describes continually developing new ways of making and passing this knowledge to her children and grandchildren. She lives and works between Maningrida and the outstations Buluhkaduru and Ankabarrbirri. Her daughter Yolanda Rostron is also an accomplished fibre artist, and Maningrida identifies Yarinkura and her late husband Bob Burruwal as important innovators who expanded the possibilities of contemporary Arnhem Land fibre sculpture.

Artworks