The low-lying Bentinck Island, measuring just twenty kilometres from west to east and twelve kilometres from north to south, is shaped by scrubby casuarina growth meeting coastal sands, by mangroves along tidal flats, and by numerous saltpans across the island’s interior. These features create sharp visual boundaries that divide the landscape into blocks of colour that modulate at different times of

day. Kayardild, one of the most complex languages in the world, has a rich vocabulary and grammatical system that divides space into abstract topological blocks reflecting this visible topography. Both the landscape and the language reveal much about Gabori’s relationship to her painting.

For Gabori, painting was a joyous performance of dance and song in communion with places on Bentinck Island that held deep personal significance – her birthplace and those of her kin. Through vibrant colours and expressive mark-making, she translated cultural memory and place into a bold painterly language. In her own words: Danda ngijinda dulk, danda ngijinda malaa, danda ngad – ‘This is my Land, this is my Sea, this is who I am.’

The inclusion of this monumental late work in the major retrospective Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori: Dulka Warngiid – Land of All at Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art (2016) and the National Gallery

of Victoria (2016–2017), and the exhibition Mundamurra Ngijinda Dulk – My Island Home at Cairns Art Gallery (2025), affirms its significance within the artist’s oeuvre

and the continuing institutional recognition of Gabori’s extraordinary contribution to contemporary art.

Private Collection, acquired from the above