Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk—My Island Home is a landmark exhibition dedicated to the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, one of the most singular voices in Australian contemporary painting. The exhibition marks Cairns Art Gallery’s 30th anniversary and represents the first major presentation of Gabori’s work in a Far North Queensland art museum.
At its core is Dibirdibi Country (2009), a rare and significant painting recently acquired for the Gallery’s collection.
The work pays tribute to the ancestral Country of Gabori’s late husband, Kabarrarjingathi Bulthuku Pat Gabori, and references Dibirdibi, the Rock Cod Ancestor. Employing a vibrant palette, the painting evokes the fish traps and sea Country of Bentinck Island. Its gestural brushwork and dynamic colour relationships speak to Gabori’s instinctive visual language—one that emerged in her 80s.
Born around 1924 on Bentinck Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Gabori lived a traditional Kaiadilt life until the 1940s, when following a series of environmental disasters her community was forcibly relocated to Mornington Island. It was there, at the age of 81, that she began to paint. In a span of just a decade, she developed a visual language that was both deeply personal and radically original—abstract yet grounded in place, history and memory.
The exhibition brings together major paintings from leading collections, including a monumental and rare Kaiadilt collaborative painting from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), a large painting from Home of the Arts (HOTA) and key loans from private lenders.
Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk not only showcases Gabori’s artistic legacy but also underscores the importance of preserving and celebrating the practices of leading painters from Far North Queensland. Her work, held in major institutions worldwide, continues to resonate, offering audiences an intimate glimpse into the spirit of Bentinck Island and the enduring strength of the Kaiadilt people.
Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk—My Island Home
Cairns Art Gallery
13 September—30 November
This article was originally published in the September/October 2025 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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