Rosella Namok

Old gals yarning into the night, 2023

70 × 98 cm acrylic on canvas

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Rosella Namok employs colour as a marker of time passing. Warm oranges, pinks, and yellows indicate the ending and beginning of a day while black paint, laid on top and then carefully scraped away by the artist’s fingers, represents the night-time sky. The act of scraping away with the hands, as a method of storytelling, pays tribute to the traditional stories of ‘The Old Gals’, Elder women in Rosella Namok’s community. This practice of storytelling was learnt by Namok through her late grandmother, who drew stories in the sand beneath her as she spoke.