Rosalyn D'Mello: The girl who started painting at 81

Aboriginal artist Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori’s work is arresting in a way that it actually dislocates the body

Free from author duties, the exhilarating Byron Writer’s Festival now behind me, I woke up from a strange dream at 6.30 am on Monday. I had taken the bus the evening before and was now in Brisbane. After a hot shower and a satisfying breakfast, I put on my running shoes and decided to head out to the South Bank. As usual, I chose to familiarise myself only peripherally with the city’s outlines, knowing intuitively where I was currently located but comfortably unsure about where I would eventually find myself. The gesture of tying my laces produced in me the same excitement it always does; the thrill of being adventurous, of submitting oneself to the geography of a city by following the lead of a street, or by spying a curious piece of architecture that then discloses open-ended walkways and often, the first glimpse of water.

The glimmering Brisbane river is almost a constant companion as you explore the city. Pic/Rosalyn D’Mello

ADVERTISEMENT

I arrived at the city hall at noon. I know because I heard the watchtower sound the hour. I crossed the Victoria bridge and found myself at the South Bank, the Brisbane river glistening beneath, and involuntarily walked into the Queensland Art Gallery, where I encountered the monumental work of aboriginal artist Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori.

To the naïve eye, Sally Gabori’s paintings can easily be swallowed whole as abstract expressions, with their sweeping fields of colors and elemental forms pervading the canvas; the unusual range of turquoise and maroons sucking you in with all the power and intensity of a Matisse. But the aboriginal artist’s work is in fact representative of emotional landscapes. They are unusually cartographic. They denote the worlds of her ancestors, the universe of inherited countries. They are dirges to lived and lost lands. They are manifestations of her culture of dreaming. Gabori adopted the paintbrush at 81, and her first attempt at mark making was in 2005, at a workshop at the local art center in Mornington Island. Her muse was the Kaiadilt Country, home to the Kaiaidilt people on Bentinck Island; which, at 16 km by 18 km, was the largest of the South Wellesley group of islands in the southern Gult of Carpentaria, off northwestern Queensland.

Gabori’s work is arresting in that it actually dislocates the body. Your feet, otherwise used to strolling; your eyes, otherwise used to roving; your heart, otherwise prone to distractions, are suddenly compelled to pause, so it can consume the emotional paradise with which they have suddenly found themselves in contact. My cartographically dyslexic being delighted in discovering a medium of capturing the terrestrial through the ambiguous gestures of a brush. Multi-coloured spools of concentric circles were stand-ins for schools of fish that collect at reefs. Oddly formed shapes symbolised salt pans and lagoons, making each painting a topographical document, one that rendered the memory of sight and lived experience through the splendor of paint.

Walking is a form of mark making. When I returned to city hall, retracing my footsteps through a different bridge, the watchtower punctuated the moment, sounding the 3 am chorus of bells. It felt as if it had rung just for me, just to archive that moment of familiarity.

The next evening, I was to move to the house of an artist who had invited me to stay. Having travelled enough with a photographer as my companion, I knew it would be best to time my return to her house from the Queensland Art Gallery, where I had returned to revisit Sally Gabori’s work, so as to coincide with the setting of the sun. When I boarded the CityCat ferries, the golden orb seemed to have melted into the river, bathing it in a holy glow. The clouds seemed to mourn the passing of the day and had collected themselves like pedestals for cherubs in a Renaissance painting. Once again my body was forced to pause in awe.

Yesterday I spent the morning biking through Brisbane with a bunch of artist friends. I felt the liberating ease with which my body dashed through chartered lanes as the river slid past me, sometimes to my left, sometimes to my right. I witnessed the city from this unique vantage point of perpetual motion, everything slipping by as I tunneled through time and space, resisting the urge to stop and photograph the scenery, consuming it with hungry eyes instead, allowing it to seep into my skin so it was absorbed and sieved through as naked memory.

For all the perks of traveling in the company of friends, there is something irresistibly alluring about being alone. You are able to experience firsthand the sanctity of receiving the unfamiliar without the distracting prism of someone else’s eyes. You can be any version of yourself you choose to be, while allowing the generosities of strangers to guide your path.

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!