Sally Gabori My Country

SALLY GABORI (Australia, c.1924-2015) My Country 2011 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas 198cm x 101cm Acquired 2011 #Inventory/Catalogue No.

Biography:

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gaboriwas a distinguished senior Kaiadilit woman and a contemporary artist of considerable sophistication whose short, yet impressive career left an extraordinary cultural legacy.

Considered one of the greatest contemporary Australian artists of the past two decades, Sally Gabori began painting in 2005, around the age of eighty, and rapidly achieved national and international recognition. In just under a decade of intense creativity, and prior to her death in 2015, she developed a unique, vibrantly colorful body of work, and one with no apparent aesthetic connection to current practices by her colleagues.

Gabori and her family lived on Bentinck Island in accordance with Kaiadilt custom, with minimal interaction or influences from European settlers, until the entire Kaiadilt population migrated to Mornington Island in 1948.  Several decades later the Kaiadilt people returned to Bentinck, although the Mornington Island community of Gununa remained a major resource centre for Gabori and her contemporaries.

Gabori is represented in many galleries and museums including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland; Musée de Quai Branly, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art (Utrecht), National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.

Artwork:

“My Country” beautifully illustrates Gabori’s signature expressive brushstrokes and vivid use of colour brilliantly couched within an abstract composition.  The work portrays places of cultural significance for the artist, and topographical reference points, in particular, her Country of birth, Bentinck Island, as well as her husband’s Country Dibirdibi, in addition to the places associated with the Dibirdibi creation story.

View:

Sally Gabori’s important survey exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, at the National Gallery of Victoria, and the National Gallery of Australia.