Mavis Ngallametta: Show me the way to go home
21 Mar 2020 – 2 Aug 2020: Queensland Art Gallery

Mavis Ngallametta (1944–2019) is remembered for her rich legacy to her community and to art and culture nationally. From her birthplace in the Kendall River region to Aurukun and its surrounds, she first made her name as a weaver. It was only in 2008 — at the age of 64 — that she began to record her world through painting. Her idiosyncratic explosions of colour and fine line work capture both the wide perspective of the landscape and the microcosm of plant and animal life. Her paintings are visually complex and alive with detail, and just as rich with personal connections to the sites depicted.

Aboriginal Artist: Dean Rotumah

Dean Rotumah belongs to a clan of people, from Fingal Heads NSW, known as the Booningbah people or “Echidna people”,… which are a part of the Bundjalung nation (meaning the place of butterflies). Dean has always been influenced by his Indigenous culture and the sea and many of his surfboards had contemporary artwork on them which further involved him in learning more about his cultural heritage through art and thereby honing his skills as a noted Aboriginal contemporary artist.

Aboriginal Artist: Jeannie Petyarre

Jeannie Petyarre (Pitjara) is one of Central Art’s most popular artists. Like many of the women from Utopia, Jeannie was introduced to modern art mediums through her involvement in the community projects that occurred in Utopia in the late 1970’s and 1980’s.

Aboriginal Artist: Louise Numina

Louise Numina painting Bush Medicine. Time to relax and watch Louise Numina paint! In this painting the leaves are boiled up extracting the medicine.  

Enjoy a walk-through tour of ‘Mavis Ngallametta: Show Me the Way to Go Home’ with Katina Davidson, Curator of Indigenous Art, and co-curator of the exhibition.