This retrospective of the work of the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori celebrates the life of the senior Kaiadilt artist from Bentinck Island in Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria.
The exhibition includes the artist’s early paintings, her large collaborative works with other Kaiadilt women, and her almost monochromatic recent paintings and works on paper. 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.
‘Like so many great artists, Sally excelled at painting the world she knew. The key to understanding her art comes from knowing, in at least a small way, her place — Kaiadilt Country — home to the Kaiadilt people on Bentinck Island. At just 16 by 18 kilometres, it is the largest of the South Wellesley group of islands in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, off north-western Queensland, in northern Australia’. (Bruce McLean, Associate Curator, Australian Art)
Image: Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Kaiadilt people, Australia 1924–2015 /Dibirdibi Country – Topway 2006 / Synthetic polymer paint on linen
