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The Arts Intel Report

Mavis Ngallametta: Show Me the Way to Go Home

Mar 21, 2020 – Feb 7, 2021
Stanley Pl, South Brisbane QLD 4101, Australia

The Australian artist Mavis Ngallametta, who passed away in 2019, was an elder of the Putch clan and a pivotal figure in her native Queensland. Renowned as a community-based artist, and also as a cultural spearhead for the Kugu and Wik people of Aurukun, her paintings demonstrate the intensity of her connection with the land of Aurukun. Cliffs are painted in meandering white and red lines, small figures inhabiting their nooks and crannies. Water lilies float on pointillist ponds. Ngallametta always began these astral views of earth and water with a layer of blue acrylic—symbolic of her respect for the most powerful element of all. —E.C.

Mavis Ngallametta, “Ikalath #92013,” 2013 / Artwork © Estate of Mavis Ngallametta / Photograph © Gina Allain.