Yabini Kickett with Sharyn Egan and Ilona McGuire
Walyalup/Fremantle, Whadjuk Nyoongar Country, Boorloo/Perth
2023
Displayed 2023 at Campbelltown Arts Centre
Ilona McGuire
Born 1997, Wonguth Country, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
Lives and works Whadjuk Nyoongar Country, Perth
Ilona McGuire is a Noongar and Kungarakan interdisciplinary artist working primarily in printmaking, drawing and installation.
Her interests and explorations of race relations within the country we call 'Australia' often manifests through material juxtaposition that examine the nature of everyday tension through to systemic turmoil. Ilona often combines traditional and contemporary methods to create sacred sanctuaries within western institutional spaces.
After her 2021 drone light show, Moombaki with the Fremantle Biennale, Ilona was awarded the Schenberg Art Fellowship for Hatched: National Graduate Show 2022 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). Followed by her residency at PICA, she exhibited at Stala Contemporary, the Fremantle Arts Centre and Goolugatup Heathcote gallery with her work now featuring in collections such as Janet Holmes à Court’s and John Curtin Gallery.
Yabini Kickett
Born 1998, Whadjuk Nyoongar Country, Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia.
Lives and works Walyalup/Fremantle, Western Australia.
Yabini Kickett is an early-career multidisciplinary artist and curator, based in Walyalup (Fremantle). In 2017, she participated in the National Gallery of Australia’s Indigenous Arts Leadership Program and has grown from there, working at the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub Western Australia, exhibiting and curating at Fremantle Arts Centre, and, most recently, having work acquired by the Art Gallery of Western Australia. During 2022, Kickett was also a selected member of the re(situate) Biennale Delegates Program funded by the Australia Council for the Arts.
Photograph: Duncan Wright
Sharyn Egan
Born 1957, Whadjuk Nyoongar Country, Subiaco, Western Australia.
Lives and works Walyalup/Fremantle, Western Australia
Sharyn Egan is a Nyoongar woman who began creating art at the age of 37, which led to her enrolling in a Diploma of Fine Arts at the Claremont School of Art in Perth. She completed this course in 1998, and enrolled in the Associate Degree in Contemporary Aboriginal Art at Curtin University, which she completed in 2000. In 2001, she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts (Arts) from Curtin University. The themes of Egan’s work are informed by the experiences of her life as a Nyoongar woman. She works in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, and woven forms using traditional and contemporary fibres. Her woven works include traditionally styled contemporary forms and baskets, as well as forms based on flora and fauna that have totemic significance for the Nyoongar people.
Egan’s works explore her personal and cultural relationships to Country, to Nyoongar Boodja. They document the relationships between places, people, plants, and animals while also reminding us of our role as custodians, to care for the natural world.
Photograph: Glenn Iseger-Pilkington
Artist text
by Yabini Kickett
Opening in May of 2022 at Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), Nih! Yeyi Yorga Waangkiny | Listen! Women Talking Now was a small but considered collection of works by various Noongar women, all at different stages of their careers – including those no longer with us. Nih! was a space for these women to come together, those just starting their artistic and cultural journeys through to those celebrated Burdiya within our community. It was also an open invitation for the wider public to come and listen to these shared stories.
Djook Ilona McGuire comes from strong lineage, through both her Kungarakan mother and Noongar father. She carries knowledge and consciousness to Country that’s palpable through her practice. Often her work is cross-textural, a feast for the eyes – it’s important. You take your time and listen to the history it tells, sometimes the warning it gives. She’s exciting to watch, stepping into her power and speaking for Country; she is that next generation of cultural custodians on the cusp of something great.
Aunty Sharyn Egan, a nationally recognised artist and Burdiyah, has paved the way for generations of Noongar artists. Her practice intertwines many mediums – weaving, painting, sculpture and more – all considered, all tangible to the maara (hands), koort (heart), and wirin (spirit). Her largest body of work to date consists of several wooden panels laden with resin from Balga, Xanthorrhoea preissii. This plant is culturally tied to Noongar men and lore, only growing within the border of Noongar Country – the closest following population several hundred kilometres away. This inclusion in her practice represents brotherhood, blood, connective tissue, and shared lineage. The resin was also traditionally used in combination with kangaroo poo, charcoal, and ash to create an almost fibreglass-like glue, which was applied to tools, withstanding great force or weather. Aunty’s adaptation of this ancient material brings some of our oldest kin into spaces within which they couldn’t otherwise exist. While displayed
at FAC, their presence in the limestone and jarrah building represented the return of blood to the space.
The work of these two yorga will travel off Noongar Boodja to Dharawal Country, for a second iteration of the show exploring similar themes and connectivity. Djookian (sisters), ngaank (mothers), and kabarli (nans) will cross Country together for more yarns: Djennung! Yeyi Yorga Koorliny | Look! Now Women Coming.
Read more information about Nih! Yeyi Yorga Waangkiny
Artists' acknowledgements
Yabini Kickett
On behalf of all the women involved in Nih! and Djennung!, I would like to give thanks to Fremantle Arts Centre, and specifically Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, for their ongoing support of First Nations artists in all forms.
Ilona McGuire would like to acknowledge and thank the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which Campbelltown Arts Centre stands, and pay her respects to their Elders past and present for the space to create and work on their Ancestral lands.