SKINS, a collaborative exhibition by First Nations creatives on Kabi Kabi Country, brings twenty artists together to exhibit their art and share their stories.
The exhibition is a culmination of weekly workshops each artist attended throughout the year. Â Lead curator Aunty Cherryl Chambers-Williams ran the workshops at Manngoor Dja in Gympie with co-curator Renee Kelso (Dawkins).
L to R: Co-curators Rene Kelso (Dawkins) with Aunty Cherryl Chambers-Williams
The resulting exhibition is a colourful display of thoughtful, materially rich contemporary Indigenous work, grounded in country, memory and cultural continuity.
The centrepieces are (ethically sourced) kangaroo skins intricately marked with pyrographic designs conveying a tactile and conceptual intensity distinguishing the work from more conventional painting-based art.
Pyrography (the art of decorating surfaces with heated tools) is often associated with craft traditions. It is elevated here into a powerful storytelling device. The artists exploit the medium’s tonal subtlety with remarkable sensitivity; incised marks evoke both fragility and endurance. Burnt lines drift across the organic forms like maps, scars or ceremonial markings, activating the natural textures of the hides.
IMAGE: supplied
SKINS also expands into painting, ceramics, sculpture, jewellery and basketry, creating a dialogue between permanence and utilitarian objects. Hand woven baskets, made from natural fibres, quietly anchor the exhibition in the everyday.
The paintings pulsate with rhythmic patterning and earth colours that speak to landscape and ancestral knowledge.
Maranoa River by Cherryl Chambers-Williams
There is an undeniable physicality to this exhibition, inviting the viewer to become acutely aware of material, symbol and cultural identity.
SKINS is on show until Saturday 7 June at ART POST: a contemporary art gallery in the historic former Post Office building in Gympie.
Opening hours are 8 am to 1.30 pm Monday to Saturday.
IMAGE: Decorated kangaroo skin at top of story is by Toby Smith
