Ninjilki 2008

Editor: This is "Ninjilki" by Sally Gabori, painted in 2008 using acrylic on canvas. At first glance, I'm really struck by the bold contrast between the white, black and magenta areas. It's so stark, yet somehow harmonious. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Harmonious is a good word, like a perfectly balanced recipe – a dash of dark here, a splash of vibrant magenta there, all held together by these substantial forms in white! For me, the brilliance lies in its simplicity. The artist, a Kaiadilt woman, was painting stories, mapping memories of her island home in Queensland, Australia. Those shapes? Could they be sandbars, or the flow of water? Editor: So, you see a landscape in what seems like total abstraction? Curator: Well, that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Gabori's work dances on the edge of representation, inviting us to find our own connections. Aboriginal art is so intrinsically linked to place, to lived experience, to ancestral stories. It’s tempting to wonder what this specific ‘Ninjilki’ means, if it refers to a particular place or moment. Do you see any recurring shapes or patterns that might hint at something specific? Editor: I see the white, black, and magenta recurring throughout the work but no specific shapes repeating…I thought the forms created negative space as I can get lost trying to define a shape that the black might not be there as its own entity but an area that makes the surrounding shape in white, standout. Curator: Oh, now you're cooking! Thinking about the *spaces* around things! Like an inverse of a typical landscape, or a glimpse of somewhere through a dense forest, where it can be difficult to define exactly what you're looking at but the place and shapes still exist? I like that a lot. I think Gabori is guiding us to connect not just with the visual, but with the very spirit of that place. Editor: That's beautiful. I hadn't thought of it that way, about how a location has a spirit… thank you. Curator: And thank you! It's through sharing our perspectives that the work truly comes alive, isn't it? I shall definitely seek out more information about 'Ninjilki', next time.