Looking-into-Leichhardt_catalogue_Oct2013_Gannon+friends

MALJAH CATHY SNOW

Rock FishTrap 122 x 93 cm acrylic on canvas 2013

I am a descendant of the Gkuthaarn peoples whose traditional lands are on the south-east of today’s Gulf of Carpentaria around Normanton. I met Bill Gannon in 2011 and discussed the importance of water and what comes of it. On his second trip to the Gulf in 2012, Margaret Sailor and I showed him the‘Goosey’lagoon system north of Normanton. We sketched there. My people hunted and gathered food there for thousands of years and it is likely that Leichhardt and the other early white explorers also enjoyed food there. Today I have four books of sketches and drawings which depict my mother's stories. These books will continue to inform the art I create. Painting gives me the opportunity to share my mother's story and my older siblings' stories with people from all walks of life. Most importantly I share stories with my family, my three children and six grandchildren. My art seems to always involve water and what is in it and of it – fish, lilies, bulbs, stalks and more; all telling of movement, colour and life.

Leichhardt's 1844-45 route Section covered by Cathy

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