Second Street Gallery is pleased to present By The Strength Of Their Skin, an exhibition featuring three senior and highly regarded female Aboriginal artists, Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Mabel Juli and Regina Pilawuk Wilson, held in the Main Gallery.

Each of these women artists approach their art practice through the prism of their Country, their Dreamings, and the everyday expression of living in a place where the spiritual and the quotidian are seamlessly connected.

Noŋgirrŋa Marawili (alt. Nonggirrnga) was born c.1939 in Baniyala, North East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. In the 1980s Noŋgirrŋa learned to paint on bark by assisting her late husband, the Djapu statesman and artists, Djutadjuta Mununggurr. After Djutadjuta’s death, Noŋgirrŋa continued to paint the Djapu themes authorized by her late husband and over time began to explore intuitive subjects and mark making outside of the realm of the sacred, gradually developing a dramatic and highly gestural style. Noŋgirrŋa is one of the most highly regarded Aboriginal artists of her generation, known for her sophisticated bark paintings, Larrakitj (memorial poles), and prints inspired by the atmospheric events and effects that are created as a country is brought to life through the movement of the natural elements.

Mabel Juli was born in the early 1930s at Five Mile, near Moola Boola Station, south of Warmun, Western Australia. Following the end of the station era in the East Kimberley, Mabel settled in Warmun where she began painting in the 1980s under the encouragement of the senior artist, Queenie McKenzie. Mabel’s paintings articulate complex Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) stories and document early colonial encounters from her country Darrajayin, which is covered largely by Springvale Station today. Mabel’s recognition as one of Australia’s most revered painters has emerged from her consistent commitment to her art practice and her remarkable storytelling.

Regina Pilawuk Wilson was born in 1948 in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory. She is a painter, a master weaver, and the Cultural Director of Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation. Together with her husband, Harold Wilson, Regina founded the Peppimenarti (meaning ‘large rock’) Community as a permanent settlement for the Ngan’gikurrungurr people in the Daly River region, south west of Darwin, Northern Territory, in 1973. The location of the community is an important Dreaming site for the Ngan’gikurrungurr language group, situated amid wetlands and floodplains at the center of the Daly River Aboriginal Reserve.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS

The exhibition at Second Street Gallery is made possible in part by Presenting Partners Pollon Art and agency, and Exhibition Partners Durrmu Arts, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, Warmun Art Centre in Western Australia.