Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori (1924 – 11 February 2015) was an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

artist who at age 81 began painting in an abstract-like style she developed to represent her

Country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

, on the south side of

Bentinck Island Bentinck Island is a small island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca just off the southern tip of Vancouver Island in Metchosin, British Columbia, Canada near Race Rocks. It served as a leper colony beginning in 1924, when the federal government shut d ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. She represented Australia in the

55th Venice Biennale The 55th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held in 2013. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Massimiliano Gioni curated its central exhibition, "The Encyclopedic Palace". ...

of 2013, and her works are held in the permanent collections of the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

; all of the Australian state galleries, and others.

Early life

Gabori was born 1924 at Mirdidingki on the south side of Bentinck Island, the largest island in the South Wellesley Group in the southern

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

, Queensland. As a young woman she lived a traditional lifestyle on Bentinck Island, largely uninfluenced by Europeans. She gathered food, including

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

, from the complex system of stone

fish trap A fish trap is a trap used for fishing. Fish traps include fishing weirs, lobster traps, and some fishing nets such as fyke nets. Traps are culturally almost universal and seem to have been independently invented many times. There are two main ...

s her people had built in the shallows around the island. She helped to build and maintain the stone walls of the fish traps, was an adept maker of string, and weaver of

dillybag A dillybag or dilly bag is a traditional Australian Aboriginal bag generally woven from plant fibres. Dillybags are mainly designed and used by women to gather and transport food, and are most commonly found in the northern parts of Australia. ' ...

s and coolamons, and a respected singer of

Kaiadilt The Kaiadilt are an Aboriginal Australian people of the South Wellesley group in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, Australia. They are native to Bentinck Island, but also made nomadic fishing and hunting forays to both Sweers and Allen Isla ...

songs, which tell of the close ties her people had with their country. Gabori's tribal name is Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda. Juwarnda' means "dolphin", her totemic sign, and Mirdidingkingathi means "born at Mirdidingki", in her country on the south side of Bentinck Island. The English name Gabori comes from her husband Pat Gabori, and is a corruption of his birthplace name, Kabararrjingathi. Severe drought in 1942–45 and a cyclone in 1948 made Bentinck Island uninhabitable, and

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missionaries moved the entire Kaiadilt people to nearby

Mornington Island Mornington Island, also known as Kunhanhaa, is an island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Shire of Mornington (Queensland), Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. It is the northernmost and largest of 22 islands that form the Wellesley I ...

, the biggest island in the South Wellesley group. The

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

started moving the people during the 1940s, when there were fewer than 100 Kaiadilt people living on the island. They separated the children from their parents and placed into separate

dormitories A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...

for boys and girls, while their parents built

humpies A humpy, also known as a gunyah, wurley, wurly or wurlie, is a small, temporary shelter, traditionally used by Australian Aboriginal people. These impermanent dwellings, made of branches and bark, are sometimes called a lean-to, since they ofte ...

around the mission. The final relocation in 1948 was spurred by the pollution of the islanders' water supply by seawater. A small outstation was established on Bentinck Island in 1986 and some Kaiadilt people returned. Gabori did not return with them because her husband was too frail, but was able to visit occasionally.

Career

In 2005, when she was 81, Sally and Pat Gabori were living in the Aged Person Hostel at Gununa on Mornington Island. Brett Evans had established the Mornington Island Arts and Crafts Centre to produce and market traditional crafts, including Gabori's fine weaving. She was offered paints for the first time at a workshop in April 2005. The Kaiadilt community had no two-dimensional art traditions before 2005, so Gabori had nothing to draw on but her memory of her country. When

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

artist Melville Escott looked at Gabori's first painting, he could identify "the river, sandbar, ripples the fish leave on the water, her brother King Alfred's country and the fish traps she used to look after". Her enthusiasm for painting grew until she was painting five days a week, every day the centre was open. Towards the end of her career, Gabori painted collaborative works with two of her daughters, and encouraged her other daughters into the art centre, to help develop a new generation of Kaiadilt painters. Over the short eight years of her painting career, she produced over 2000 paintings, and almost all major institutions in Australia acquired her works. Gabori's work has featured in over 28 solo exhibitions and been part of more than 100 group exhibitions.

Style

Her works have been described as

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

and

gestural abstraction Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...

, but art theory was not an influence on her work, since Gabori had little English. Many of her paintings represent the sea, sky and land of her country, but she is thought to be not so much engaging with an audience as engaging with her country.

Death and legacy

Gabori died on 11 February 2015."Sally Gabori (Australian, born circa 1924–2015)"

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Awards and nominations

* 2012 Winner – The 2012 Gold Award * 2012 Winner – Togart Contemporary Art Award

Major exhibitions

* 2005 ''Sally's Story'', Woolloongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia * 2013 ''Danda ngijinda dulk, danda ngijinda malaa, danda ngad'' – ''This is my Land, this is my Sea. This is who I am''. A survey exhibition of paintings by Sally Gabori, 2005–2012, Drill Hall Gallery,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

* 2013 Personal Structures, 55th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

2013,

Palazzo Bembo Palazzo Bembo is a palace in Venice, Italy, on the Grand Canal, close by the Rialto Bridge and next to the Palazzo Dolfin Manin. History It was built by the noble family of Bembo in the 15th century. Although it was remodeled several times ove ...

, Venice * 2016 ''Dulka Warngiid'' – ''Land of All'', 21 May 2016 – 28 Aug 2016,

QAGOMA The Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, colloquially known as QAGOMA, is an art museum in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It consists of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), which is the main building, and a second gallery, the Ga ...

and 23 September 2016 – 29 January 2017, the

Ian Potter Centre The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia is an art gallery that houses the Australian part of the art collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia is located at Federation Square in Melbourne, Victori ...

* 2022 ''Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori'' – July 2022 to November 2022 –

Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain The Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, known simply as the Fondation Cartier, is a contemporary art museum located at 261 boulevard Raspail in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, 14th arrondissement of the France, French capital, Paris. H ...

, France

Public collections

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

(3 works, ''Dibirdibi country'' 2010, 2012 , 2012'')'' *

Art Gallery of South Australia The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...

Art Gallery of Western Australia The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the ...

* Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tomaki (''Dibirdibi country'', ''River at King Alfred's country'' and ''Dibirdibi country'') *

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

, Sydney (1 work, ''Makarrki'' 2008) * Musée du Quai Branly (''Ninjilki'' 2006) *

(7 works including ''Nyinyilki'' 2009, ''My Country'' 2009) *

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

(11 works including ''Dibirdibi country'', and ''Rockcod story place'' * Queensland Art Gallery , Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

References

External links

"Ancestral story and personal history overlap in Sally Gabori's art"

blog
"Visual voice of an island language"
QAGOMA blog
"Sally Gabori's Dibirdibi country"
by Bruce Mclean, 29 September 2015, QAGOMA blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Gabori, Sally 1920s births 2015 deaths Australian Aboriginal artists 21st-century Australian artists 21st-century Australian women artists Abstract expressionist artists