Balang Nakurulk, an influential figure in Australian Indigenous art, passed away in December 2024 in Maningrida. Living much of his life in isolation, he was renowned for his intricate rarrk paintings that gained international recognition. Winning multiple prestigious awards, including the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Balang's work preserved and celebrated Aboriginal culture. His impactful contributions were honored with an Order of Australia in 2010, and he showcased his art at renowned institutions globally, demonstrating the strength and energy within his distinctive artistic technique.
Balang's large oeuvre of paintings in ochres on stringybark exuded power and energy because of the way they were painted." says Nici Cumpston, curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
In 2010 he was awarded an Order of Australia 'for service to the preservation of Aboriginal culture as the foremost exponent of the Rarrk visual art style.'
He was commissioned to create a work of art onsite at Paris's Musée du Quai Branly before the museum opened in 2006.
From the late 1970s he gained a rapidly growing reputation as a painter on bark, deploying intricate cross-hatched patterns called 'rarrk'.
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