Rose Art Museum Expands Collection with Sam Hunter Committee Acquisitions of Works By Dhambit Munuŋgurr and Yu-Wen Wu
(Waltham, MA, April 23, 2025) — The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is thrilled to announce the acquisition of works by Dhambit Munuŋgurr and Yu-Wen Wu into its permanent collection. Selected by the Sam Hunter Emerging Artist Fund Committee, these significant additions reflect the museum’s dedication to championing innovative contemporary voices and broadening the global perspectives within its holdings.
“We are thrilled to bring these extraordinary works into the Rose Art Museum’s permanent collection,” said Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum. “Both Yu-Wen Wu and Dhambit Munuŋgurr bring unique, deeply personal storytelling to their artmaking, expanding the museum’s ability to present diverse narratives that challenge and inspire.”
Dhambit Munuŋgurr is renowned for her bold, dynamic works that redefine tradition while honoring ancestral narratives, bringing a contemporary vibrancy to the rich legacy of Yolŋu art. Bäru (2024), the piece selected for acquisition, is a termite-hollowed log of a eucalyptus tree traditionally used as a larrakitj—a memorial pole housing the bones of the deceased. Munuŋgurr transforms this sacred form with gapan (white clay), electric ultramarine, and soft pastel blues, applied with a marwat, a fine brush made from human hair. Her striking palette and fluid brushwork evoke the essence of sky and sea, seamlessly merging heritage and innovation in a profoundly moving and politically charged tribute to the Yolŋu people of Australia.
In her work, Boston-based artist Yu-Wen Wu explores themes of migration, identity, and interconnectedness through intricate pieces that blend drawing, mapping, and time-based media. The Sam Hunter Committee selected Wu’s Recitations (2024) for acquisition. Inspired by her Intentions series, this wall-based installation is crafted from Taiwanese tea, gold, and red thread. In Recitations, a delicate strand of orbs in varying sizes, made from Taiwanese tea, is suspended from three points on the wall. The lower portions extend downward, gracefully spiraling onto a low pedestal. Some orbs shimmer with a gold finish, while others remain untouched, revealing the natural color of the tea. Together, they create a poetic meditation on transformation and materiality.
Munuŋgurr’s and Wu’s works will be included in the upcoming exhibition Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art in the museum’s Gerald S. and Sandra Fineberg and Lower Rose Galleries, to open on August 20, 2025, and run through May 31, 2026. The exhibition will highlight contemporary artistic practices that occupy liminal spaces between distinct cultures and modes of expression.
ABOUT DHAMBIT MUNUŊGURR
Dhambit Munuŋgurr (b. 1968, Yirrkala, Australia) is a Yolŋu artist of the Gupa-Djapu clan. Her recent solo exhibitions include Dhambit - Rock of Ages (2024), Salon 94, New York, NY; Dhambit Munuŋgurr (2023), Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia; and Can We All Have a Happy Life, NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2020). Her work has also been presented in group exhibitions such as Bark Ladies: Eleven Artists from Yirrkala, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, and Tarnanthi: Festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art (2019), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. In 2022, Munuŋgurr was awarded the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia. In 2023, her work won the Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Munuŋgurr’s work is represented in public and private collections nationally and internationally, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, Foundation Opale, Switzerland, and Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
ABOUT YU-WEN WU
Yu-Wen Wu (b. 1958, Taipei, Taiwan) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections of art, science, and social and cultural issues. She has been awarded numerous public art commissions, including Lantern Stories (2020 and 2022), commissioned by the Greenway Conservancy, and The Poetry of Reason at Tufts University in Somerville, MA. Wu was the recipient of a 2021 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and the 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2024, she joined the Stepping Stone Cohort of the Trellis Art Fund in New York and served as Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where her design for the museum’s façade will be installed in June 2025. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Boston Public Library, the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, MA, and the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, NJ.
ABOUT THE SAM HUNTER EMERGING ARTIST FUND
Established in 2015, the Sam Hunter Emerging Artists Fund honors the Rose Art Museum’s founding director by continuing his legacy of bold acquisitions and support for rising talent. Guided by the museum’s director and chief curator, a volunteer committee selects works by emerging artists within a set spending cap, fostering early investment in promising artistic voices. Members contribute to a collective fund, meet monthly to review potential acquisitions, and ultimately choose artists whose work aligns with the museum’s vision. Past acquisitions include works by David Schutter (2015), Claire Anna Baker (2017), B. Ingrid Olson (2017), Myra Greene (2019), Samira Yamin (2019), Christine Sun Kim (2020), Elle Pérez (2021), Nona Faustine (2021), Hồng-Ân Trương (2022), Zoë Buckman (2023), and Anne Samat (2024).
ABOUT THE ROSE ART MUSEUM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Rose Art Museum fosters community, experimentation, and scholarship through direct engagement with modern and contemporary art, artists, and ideas. Founded in 1961, the Rose is among the nation’s preeminent university art museums and houses one of New England's most extensive collections of modern and contemporary art. Through its exceptional collection, support of emerging artists, and innovative programming, the museum serves as a nexus for art and social justice at Brandeis University and beyond. Located just 20 minutes from downtown Boston, Rose Art Museum is open Wednesdays–Sundays, 11 AM–5 PM. Admission is free.
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Image Credits:
[Left] Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Bäru, 2024. Acrylic on wood. Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University. Sam Hunter Emerging Artist Fund and Mortimer and Sara Hays Acquisition Fund, 2025.2. © Dhambit Munuŋgurr. Courtesy the artist Salon 94 and Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre.
[Right] Yu-Wen Wu, Recitations, 2024. Gilded Taiwanese tea, spray paint, red thread. Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University. Sam Hunter Emerging Artist Fund and Mortimer and Sara Hays Acquisition Fund, 2025.1. © Yu-Wen Wu. Courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery. Dan Watkins Photography.
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