Ethel Murray
By Katina Davidson
'Embodied Knowledge' July 2022
Ethel Murray is a Girramay/Jirrbal artist from the rainforest region of Cardwell, far north Queensland, an area well known for sculptural and weaving practices. She draws on this rich history to create Bumbil Bigin Nguma 2022: a work that remembers the bigin (shields) of her nguma (father).
Bigin were customarily made by the rainforest peoples of north Queensland, whose lands stretch from Paluma in the south to near Cape Tribulation in the north. The kidney shape of bigin reflects the shape of the buttress roots of rainforest fig trees used by Aboriginal people to craft the shields.
Taking old drawings by her father as inspiration, Murray has created three larger-than-life shagpile tapestries in the unique shape of a rainforest shield. In lieu of traditional shields, which are only to be made by senior men, Murray creates contemporary designs with robust materials to continue her father’s legacy. In this respect, Bumbil Bigin Nguma are potent symbols of embodied knowledge and cultural resilience that incorporate traditional and cultural formal languages and motifs in contemporary materials and strategies.
Murray’s ingenuity and innovation is thoroughly representative of the distinct new creative directions of Indigenous women of north Queensland’s rainforest region.
Feature image: Ethel Murray's Bumbil Bigin Nguma (remembering my father’s shields) 2022, installed for 'Embodied Knowledge', with a distant view of works by Jean Barth, QAG, December 2022 / Purchased 2023 with funds from Gina Fairfax AC through the QAGOMA Foundation / © Ethel Murray / Photograph: J Ruckli, QAGOMA
