Large Pouch – Lena Nyadbi, Starry Night in Jimbirla Country

Working with an austere monochrome palette, matt texture and an emphatic repetition of simple designs over large surfaces, Nyadbi has formulated an ascetic visual language that conceptualises her innermost feeling for Country. The graphic vertical signs represent jimbirla (spearheads) made from razor-sharp stones that abound in Nyadbi’s father’s Jimbirla Country, which lies north of Warmun. Jimbirla were often produced for ritual exchange and hunting and were also used to make cicatrices on initiates’ bodies in ceremony. As a dramatic counterpoint to this formal gravitas, stars float and shimmer elusively in the smoky grey night sky, an allusion to the infinite beyond.

Lena Nyadbi
Starry night in Jimbirla country (2000)
earth pigments on canvas
90.1 x 121.0 cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through the NGV Foundation with the assistance of the Joan Clemenger Endowment, Governor, 2001
© Lena Nyadbi/Copyright Agency, 2025