MULKUN WIRRPANDA was a senior artist of the Dhudi-Djapu clan from Dhuruputjpi, Eastern Arnhem Land, a classificatory daughter of the late Dhäkiyarr Wirrpanda, and a mother (by kinship) to senior artist and clan leader, Djambawa Marawili. Wirrpanda painted Dhudi-Djapu miny'tji (ceremonial clan designs) which depicted her land at Dhuruputjpi, including the areas of Yalata and Darrangi. As the eldest and most knowledgeable of her clan, she was recognised as a leader – one of the few Yolngu women to have this status. Wirrpanda was an early practitioner of experimenting with miny'tji for aesthetic rather than ceremonial purposes. Using ochres, she painted on bark, larrakitj (memorial poles) and yidaki (didgeridoo), and was a talented carver, weaver and print maker.
From 2012, Wirrpanda began to explore through her work the lesser-known edible plant species – nutritious foods that she grew up on – the knowledge of which she feared were being forgotten by younger generations of Yolngu. In stark contrast to today, in years past, old people lived for a long time without illness. Wirrpanda's exploration of edible plant life coincided with landscape painter, John Wolseley's, interest in returning to Yilpara, after the two artists had met during the Djalkiri project (2010) and spent an extended period exploring the botany of Blue Mud Bay. Wolseley spent a week at Yilpara with Wirrpanda in May 2012 and again at Yirrkala in June 2013, with further extended annual visits every year until her death in 2021. Their exhibition, Marrma dilakmala lurruma gurra nathawu – Two Old Artists Looking for Food (2015), preceded their collaboration, Midawarr/ Harvest (2017-18), a joint exhibition at the National Museum of Australia, which also toured in Darwin and Melbourne.
Wirrpanda's subsequent paintings of maypal (shellfish), which inhabit the coastal waters of the Northern Territory, culminated in an exhibition at Salon Art Projects in Darwin. In 2019, Wolseley and Wirrpanda explored extended ideas of maypal, which included larvae that bore into wood, which led to her final, significant project on the theme of termite ecosystems exhibited at The National: New Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, in 2021. Using natural pigments on bark, board and larrakitj, Wirrpanda depicted the mounds of munyukulunu (magnetic or compass termites – Amitermes meridionalis), a species of eusocial insect that is endemic to northern Australia.
Wirrpanda's botanical painting preserves empirical Yolngu knowledge observed for millennia by her people. Wirrpanda painted these termite mounds inhabited not by their makers, but by their symbiotic partners: nadi (northern meat ants – Iridomyrmex sanguineus), diverse bird species (principally pardalotes) and their eggs, as well as beehives. These termites, carnivorous ants, birds and bees are able to live together in ecological balance. As Rachel Kent noted, "[Wirrpanda's works are] incredibly beautiful but what they show is this model for adaptive, social living and the sharing of space in a harmonious and collaborative way and I think it is a fantastic metaphor for ways we might think about our future" (Rachel Kent, 2021).