Sally (Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda) Gabori

Painted at Mornington Island Arts and Craft Centre, Gununa, in 2010 (catalogue number #5612-L-SG-0310)

Raft Art Space, Alice Springs

Private Collection, Sun Valley

Raft Art Space, Alice Springs, Sally Gabori from Mornington Island Arts and Craft, July 15 - August 9, 2011

Sally Gabori’s paintings focus on her family’s traditional lands on the small island of Bentinck Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. She painted her birthplace Mirdidingki, her older brother’s country Makarrkki, and Thundi belonging to her father. Her husband’s traditional land was Dibirdibi. Dibirdibi is the name of the Rock Cod ancestor whose final resting place is at the bottom of a cliff on Mundamuru (Sweers Island) in the Bentinck archipelago. For a related painting of Dibirdibi, see Dibirdibi Country – Topway, 2006, in the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery, illustrated in the retrospective exhibition catalog by Bruce McLean et al, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Dulka Warngiid – Land of all, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2016, p. 57, catalog number 9.

Sally Gabori is one of the most celebrated Australian artists in recent years. Her work was selected for the exhibition Australia at the Royal Academy, London, in 2013, and in 2022 Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, mounted a major survey of Gabori’s paintings which was subsequently shown at the Triennale di Milano.