Artists
As part of our professional development program Blak Creatives Munimba-ja Supports Artists with - Art Sales, Business Development, Arts Management, Training, Networking and Mentoring. Munimba-ja supports multi disciplinary Artists to further their Arts and business knowledge cultural knowledge and connection and promotes their work. I
At the heart of our ever growing team is authentic relationship building and respect for country
OUR ARTISTS
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// Visual Artist
Clea is a proud Mithika and Gunggari woman working and living on Gubbi Gubbi country.
Art has been a passion of Clea's from a very young age. She has recently begun to pursue her art professionally and is creating work that is receiving attention for its skill and execution. Clea experiments with water colour, natural pigments, portraiture and installation.
Clea has a strong connection to her Mithika and Gunggari country and a great respect for the Gubbi Gubbi country she lives on.
Clea has dedicated her life to education as a First Nations teacher and would like to educate people about our culture through her art.
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// Visual Artist Musician
JADAMALI LEUGA (Yalanji/Samoan)
Strong, proud and intuitive, Yalanji/Samoan artist Jadamali has her roots planted deep in Yalanji culture and has also been exploring her Samoan identity since her late teens. Jadamali uses mostly the digital art platform to express her journey through life and to tell relatable stories. Jadamali’s intuitive futuristic style gives her artwork a depth of wisdom that extends well beyond her years. Her prints are multi-layered story telling pieces with powerful insight.
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// Visual Artist
Rachel Bywaters lives on Kabi Kabi country and is a proud descendant of the peoples of the Gamilaroi nation on her father's side and has European bloodlines on her mother's side. After a career in the Community Services sector, Bywaters is pursuing her passion for creative expression and storytelling at the acclaimed Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program at Griffith Queensland College of Art and Design. Central to her multidisciplinary practice is the innovative use of societal artefacts to express socio-political issues and decolonial perspectives. Bywaters explores themes of First Nations truth-telling, resistance and resilience, drawing on her personal history and lived experiences. She has participated in group exhibitions in Victoria and Queensland and currently has recently exhibited in the Queensland State Archives.
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// Wearable Art
Renee is the creator behind Murri Girl Designs. Her business connects people with culture through wearable art. She create authentic and original, hand-painted earrings, upcycled fashion and quirky apparel with respect and love of culture.
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// Director
A Ngugi woman of Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), in the Quandamooka (Moreton Bay), Queensland Australia. Libby Harward creates artworks that break through the colonial overlay to connect with the cultural landscape, which always was, and remains to be there. Her practice, in a range of genres, continues this decolonising process. Libby describes her practice as a process of simultaneously listening, calling out to, knowing and understanding Country.
Libby founded Munimba-ja culture space in 2021 Libby is predominantly interested in creating a black space in Maleny where Aboriginal people can come together to discuss, organise, collaborate, showcase and celebrate on our own terms.
OUR TEAM
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// Gallery Assistant
JADAMALI LEUGA (Yalanji/Samoan)
Strong, proud and intuitive, Yalanji/Samoan artist Jadamali has her roots planted deep in Yalanji culture and has also been exploring her Samoan identity since her late teens. Jadamali uses mostly the digital art platform to express her journey through life and to tell relatable stories. Jadamali’s intuitive futuristic style gives her artwork a depth of wisdom that extends well beyond her years. Her prints are multi-layered story telling pieces with powerful insight.
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// Elder in Residence
l was born in Wondai Hospital, the old white hospital near Cherbourg. They took me and mum there because of the trouble I was giving her in childbirth. My mum’s name was Avril Murphy. When I was born half my family called me Gdaraphi which means “fair skinned one”. After mum and dad split up, me and my brother and sister moved to Stradbroke Island with Mum and lived with Aunty Mari and Uncle Jim Newfong. Mum went to the mainland to work, and then unfortunately due to difficult circumstances, my Dad Bobby Blair came and got us and took us back to Cherbourg where we stayed with my Grannie Mary Riley. In 1950 when I was 3, Mum came to visit me and my siblings, Kenny and Joy, and when she left she took my older brother Kenny with her and I didn’t see him again until I was sixteen.
I have always felt strong when learning about my Culture. I learnt a lot of Culture in Cherbourg over the years. As a young fella we used to get visits from black fellas from all over and they used to teach us. The old fellas were pretty strict in the old days.
After school in the afternoons I went a few houses up to Uncle Jack and Aunty Effie Arnold’s home. They had one daughter and two boys, Richard and Robert Arnold. Richard used to show me how to draw and paint. Richard was known as Stiffy cos he used to run really stiff when he was playing footy.
After school on a Friday when I finished my chores, I could go up the creek fishing and camping with Nanna Rosey Graham and Pa Fred and sometimes other old people. We used to take flour for damper, tea and sugar. I used to love fishing and cooking on the open fire. When I got a bit older Uncle Lenny Duncan used to take us hunting with Trevor Duncan and Audie Murphy Hopkins. We would ride horses. Sometimes I would walk with the Nannas and when I got my car I used to take them out hunting in my car.
I learnt to draw from my old people in Cherbourg and I still draw the same way. My grandfather Charlie Riley, Charlie Chambers and Uncle Angus Rabbit Snr were some of the old people that showed me how to draw. I still have some old pictures Uncle Angus Rabbit Snr drew for me and I have continued to draw in the similar style all these years. He showed me how to carve artefacts and walking sticks too. Drawing has got me through so many hard and wonderful times.
I was sent to work at Quoin Island, two miles off Gladstone when I was 14, against my will and when I managed to abscond I went to live with Dad at Nikenbah near Hervey Bay. I didn’t have permission to leave Cherbourg Mission and I had a Government warrant out for my arrest. After a year on the run I was eventually caught and taken back to Cherbourg and placed under the management of the Government again. My Dad applied for an exemption for me from the Aboriginals Preservation and Protection Act which was granted on the 4th of April 1963. I still have my exemption certificate. That's when I was given permission to go live with Dad again, outside of Cherbourg settlement.
Since my exemption I have worked all over Queensland in contract labour, like ring barking, stick picking, factory work, and much later on I worked in Aboriginal Community organisations. All this time I was working across Queensland, I was drawing and making art.
I remember when I really got back into art, I went to work at Calipe on the railways and I was working with three old white fellas in a fettling gang. They used to talk about a lot of things I wasn’t interested in at lunchtime so I used to carve and draw. I remember carving Dad a walking stick back then, I have now given that same walking stick to my nephew BJ Murphy who I hope will follow in my footsteps
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// Blak Creatives Co-ordinator
Chloe Watego is a Gubbi Gubbi-based woman with a passion for sharing and celebrating her culture through art.
As a self-taught artist, Chloe uses painting for creative expression and to aid in healing as she continues to explore her family's heritage.
Born and raised on Yugambeh land, Chloe is of South Sea Islander descent and through her grandmother has ties to Torres Strait Island and the Bundjalung nation. Her grandfather was removed from family due the Stolen Generations, causing a hurtful disconnection to heritage and culture for him and the following generations of his family.
It was while on this journey to identify her grandfather's country, tribe and language that Chloe first started painting.
Chloe's artworks are a means to shine a light on her family's enduring ties to the land while also illuminating the path forward for her children and future generations of her family.
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// Gallery Assistant
Quandamooka weaver
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// Artist, Project Management and Artworker
Emerging contemporary artist exploring the natural landscape through a colonised vs coloniser lens. A Wiradjuri descendant, born on Ngemba country, raising a revolution on Jinibara land. Lexie navigates being a white appearing woman whilst exploring her family lineage and how it is integral in her interpretation of the land in which she lives and creates on.
Dabbling in paint, mark making, eco dye, weaving and clay, Lexie is also an arts educator who is passionate about accessibility, inclusivity and social activism.
Although her artworks are often recognisable by their playful use of colour, Lexie also uses natural elements to continue the important conversation between the natural and manmade environments. And most recently, the conversation between native and introduced tree species.
The logo represents the coming together of all mob who create Munimba-ja Art Centre, an Aboriginal Art Gallery and Culture Space that hosts a thriving creative community a nurturing breeding ground for new ideas.
When fresh water meets salt water, a convergence happens. A place is created for new life. This place of coming together becomes home to unique plants and animal communities that have adapted to the brackish waters of the in between spaces — a mixture of fresh water draining from the land and salty seawaters of the oceans.
These liminal places or estuaries also serve as natural filters and become perfect places to provide nurturing breeding grounds for many species of birds, fish, plants and more than human species. Estuaries are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. Many animals rely on estuaries for food, places to breed, and migration stopovers.
Munimba-ja Welcome Place is continually inspired by the meeting of fresh and salt water in the pursuit to nuture and maintain a safe space that can celebrate Blak Excellence.
The Munimba-ja Welcome Place logo was designed as a collaboration between Libby Harward a salt water Murri, and Bj Murphy a Fresh water Murri with Amy Franks and Jenny Zhao from Crumpet Club.