Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, from Bentinck Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, was one of the last coastal Aboriginal people to be born beyond the Australian frontier. Her early life was lived entirely traditionally. From the time of her birth in around 1924 she lived on Bentinck Island where she worked with the sea to provide sustenance for her family. In 1948, however, after consecutive natural disasters on Bentinck Island – including a drought and storms, and a tidal surge that ruined the island's fresh water supply – she moved with her Kaiadilt family to Mornington Island.

It was on Mornington Island in 2005, nearly 60 years after being separated from her country, that Gabori first picked up a paintbrush. Her Kaiadilt family had no prior experience of making art and so her early attempts at painting allowed her a freedom to express her story in an entirely new way. Her artistic repertoire mainly consisted of six subjects, all of them places on Bentinck Island to which she had strong personal and familial ties: Mirdidingki, Dibirdibi, Dingkari, Makarrki, Thundi and Nyinyilki. She painted each place hundreds of times to relive memories of the people and places she loved. 

Although Gabori's paintings of her homeland are abstract, elements of their composition speak to the textures of her homeland. Her paintings of Makarrki often relate to the flow of the river, the topography of the islands within the river, the tidal sand flats and offshore sand bars, camping and dugong-hunting areas, the rippled sand at the river mouth, fringes of stilted mangroves and rock-walled fish traps. 

Bruce McLean, MCA Collection Handbook, Natasha Bullock (ed.), Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 2016

Website: Sally Gabori | MCA Australia https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/sally-gabori/ [accessed 20 April 2022]

This painting is sold with accompanying Certificate of Authenticity provided by Mornington Island Arts.