Sally Gabori

This artist produced a comparative large body of work considering the brevity of the period of her activity, and worked with a rare creative intensity. Her oeuvre is unique, marked by the use of vibrant colours, unfettered by any apparent attachment to aesthetic trends, even those of contemporary aboriginal painting. Gabori belongs to the Kaiadilt people and was one of the last speakers of their language, Kayardild.

In 1948, after a series of environmental disasters, including a cyclone and the contamination of their fresh water reserves, the Kaiadilt were relocated by Presbyterian missionaries from Bentinck to Mornington Island. Their exile, which they had thought would be of short duration, stretched into several decades. Upon their arrival on Mornington, the Kaiadilt were settled in encampments on the beach while the children were separated from their parents and placed in dormitories in the church mission. They were forbidden from speaking their native tongue and forced to break all ties with their culture and traditions. When Sally Gabori was around eighty years old, she went to the art centre on Mornington for the first time, and her first contact with paints and painting was an epiphany. From that point on, she spent as much time as she could there, sometimes painting several pieces in a day. While at first glance her works seem abstract, Gabori's work celebrates different locations on her native island, which she had not seen for almost forty years, as well as the people of her family, who are forever linked to the land by their names. Her works are veritable topographical beacons, and tell a story of profound personal significance, for her, her family and her people. Combinations of colour, playing with forms , superpositioning surfaces, and varied formats characterise her oeuvre. Over the course of the nine years of her artistic activity, Gabori painted almost 2,000 canvases that explored the vast range of pictorial expression.

In 2021, the Fondation Cartier became the first French institution to host a solo exhibition of  Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori outside of Australia. This exhibition was also shown at the Milan Triennale (2022) as part of its partnership with the Fondation Cartier. The foundation wished to honour the life and work of this artist through an online project which is accessible to all. It is the fruit of an ambitious research project undertaken with close collaboration with Gabori's family and the Kaiadilt community. This original project examines the extraordinary story of this great Kaiadilt artist and attests to the richness of her work and its importance as a cultural legacy of her people which she has left to the future generations of her community. The site includes several documents and exclusive interviews, and is the most detailed archival source on the history of Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori.