Like so many great artists Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori — senior Kaiadilt artist from Bentinck Island in Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia — excelled at painting the world she knew, here she introduces you to her grandfather’s country. ‘Dingkari is an outside hunting ground to the south of Bentinck Island. It has a shallow reef…
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Nyinyilki sits on the south-eastern coast of Bentinck Island and is home to a large permanent freshwater lagoon. Following the Kaiadilt Land Rights battles, an outstation was established there and is often referred to as ‘Main Base’ or ‘Main Camp’. Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori and the group of senior women whom she lived and worked…
Continue reading » “Why is an outstation on Bentinck Island important to Sally Gabori?”
Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori’s depictions of her homeland are abstract in nature, but retain representational elements which map traditional country and cultural identity in monumental paintings. Thundi (or Thunduyi) is her father’s Country, adjacent to a river near the island’s northern tip, which runs parallel to a ridge of tall sandhills that skirt its north-eastern…
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In Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori’s paintings places and people are inseparable, stemming from the Kaiadilt tradition of naming people through association with the place and totem one was born into. By adding the Kaiadilt suffix ~ngathi (meaning ‘born at’) to a person’s birthplace, a name is created. Sally Gabori, born by the small creek at…
Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori was born around 1924 near a small creek on the southern side of Bentinck Island, in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. This small island, measuring around 16 by 18 kilometres, is the Dulka Warngiid, the land of all, of the Kaiadilt people. ‘Danda ngijinda dulk, danda ngijinda malaa, danda ngad’ (This…
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This video shows the re-stretching of Dulka Warngiid, one of several 6m long paintings in the exhibition ‘Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Duka Warngiid – Land of all‘ showcasing the artist’s early paintings, and her large collaborative works with other Kaiadilt women on view at the Queensland Art Gallery until 28 August 2016. Transporting oversized works…
Continue reading » “Re-stretching Sally Gabori’s ‘Dulka Warngiid’”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.