Outside Dibirdibi 2008

Sally Gabori created "Outside Dibirdibi" using acrylic paint on canvas. She started painting relatively late in life, yet she quickly developed a distinctive abstract style. Her canvases are not traditional landscapes but are more like memory maps. In this work, bright yellows and reds contrast with blacks and whites. The forms, though abstract, evoke a sense of place, hinting at the textures and colors of her homeland in Queensland, Australia. Gabori paints with bold strokes, revealing the viscosity of the acrylics. This is not an illusionistic picture – we can always sense the inherent materiality of the paint. There is a kind of cultural activism to Gabori's work. She reclaimed the right to represent her homeland, using materials that came ready-made from the art supply shop, a far cry from Indigenous traditions of working with ochre and natural dyes. So while it is tempting to describe her paintings as naïve, they are deeply considered acts of self-determination.