Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori b. c.1924

Also known as Sally Gabori
  • Artist (Weaver),
  • Artist (Painter)
As with other Kaiadilt women, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori wove grass nets and carved coolamons for many years before she began to paint. Her first exuberant abstract paintings were exhibited in 2005 at the Mornington Island Arts and Crafts Centre, and soon attracted national attention. In 2016, the year after her death, QAGOMA honoured her with a retrospective survey of her work.
Tags: Abstract painting

Born circa 1924 on Bentinck Island (Kabararrji )in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Gabori grew up traditionally hunting, fishing and gathering. In the 1940s after a combination of drought and rising tides led to conflict among the Kaiadilt people, missionaries deported the entire population to Mornington Island where she lived for many years. Originally a weaver, Gabori first began exhibiting her paintings in 2005 at the Mornington Island Arts and Crafts Centre. She had a solo exhibition in 2005 at the Woolloongabba Art Gallery and was a finalist in the Xstrata Indigenous Emerging Artist Award in 2006. Her work was subsequently purchased for the permanent collection of the Queensland Art Gallery and in 2012 her work was included in the National Gallery of Australia’s National Indigenous Art Triennial.
The income from her painting enabled her to return, with other women, to Bentinck Island.
As is the custom, on her death her name was changed to Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda.
Mirdidingkingathi means someone born in Mirdidingkinki
Juwarnda is a dolphin, her totem.

Writers:
Allas, Tess
Joanna Mendelssohn
Date written:
2007
Last updated:
2020