Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori c.1924–2015 was a contemporary artist of considerable sophistication and dare and a distinguished senior Kaiadilt woman artist from Bentinck Island in the Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria. Her indefatigable zeal to communicate her stories, knowledge, and experiences accumulated over an incredible life — spanning over 90 years — won her great admiration and has left an astonishing cultural legacy.
Gabori created a body of work, which expressed sensations of life and cultural memory in diaspora, and differed from other known forms of Aboriginal painting, which focused on story-telling. Most of Gabori’s works represent places on Bentinck Island of deep personal significance to the artist: her husband’s place, Dibirdibi Country, her father’s place, Thundi, her own Country, Mirdidingki, and the first outstation, Nyinyilki.
Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori
Big River at King Alfred's Country (2007)
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
151.2 x 102.6 cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of James Cousins AO and Libby Cousins through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2017
© Sally Gabori/Copyright Agency, 2025
