“Brush: Women Painters” at Cairns Art Gallery brings together the work of eight trailblazing women: Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Birrmuyingathi Maali Netta Loogatha, Thunduyingathi Bijarrb May Moodoonuthi, Naomi Hobson, Rosella Namok, Samantha Hobson, Mavis Ngallametta, and Janet Koongotema, each of whom has carved a unique position within the landscape of Australian painting. Since the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, these artists have created works that speak to a profound cultural and spiritual knowledge of landscape, seasonal patterns, and sacred story places, while simultaneously presenting the realities of Indigenous community life.
The artists in this exhibition are defined not by longstanding painting traditions, but by shared geographical conditions, lived experience, and histories of displacement and adaptation. Their paintings carry memory and presence—not an idea of culture, but a lived experience of it. By presenting these women in dialogue for the first time, the exhibition seeks to unpack their individual yet interconnected stories, while exploring their shared creative output and innovation in colour, technique, and style.
On the east coast of Cape York, painting emerged as a new form of creative expression—an outlet through which a younger generation of artists could share their lived experiences while translating cultural narratives passed down by their Elders.
“Across many of the works in Brush, women continue to foreground ancestral narratives and cultural knowledge, carrying these stories across the surface of the canvas through the rhythm and movement of the brush.”
– Shonae Hobson, Curator of Brush: Women Painters
