Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori

My Country 2005

The ‘My Country’ (Mirdidingki) paintings celebrate Sally Gabori’s birthplace, the small creek that runs from inland Bentinck Island to a small bay on the southern coast, facing towards the massive rivers of the mainland Gulf coast.

Inland, saltpans emerge, while at the creek’s edges mangroves dominate, becoming a heavily forested tidal estuary at its mouth. Halfway along the creek, a small but striking midden-encrusted island devoid of vegetation emerges from the mangroves — a piercing circle of white among the green trees. Nearer the mouth of the creek a branch extends to the east along the back-beaches of the bay, creating an area of density in an otherwise sparse land. The creek ends in a long sandy tidal flat that extends into the bay for hundreds of metres, then transforms into a vibrant network of connecting coral reefs teeming with turtles, fish and other sea life.

Sally Gabori’s paintings of Mirdidingki often include strong linear icons at their centre, referencing the creek there, while others depict either the tree she was born under, the places loved ones are buried, the sand flats where shell fish are collected, or the camp site and middens where shells amassed over millennia.