WORKS BY LEADING ABORIGINAL, TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS AND WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS

The artist's first cast bronze depicts a dugong, (dhangal), and refers to the way in which it was traditionally hunted. The dugong is shown suspended by four paddles which are used to paddle the hunter's canoe. These paddles also represent four wap (harpoons) which were used to capture the dugong from a Nath (hunting platform). The Nath was constructed of mangrove poles and twine made from coconut fibre. It was built above the surface of the water, over a section of the sea grass bed where the dugong had fed the previous night. The hunter, who is courageous and highly skilled, takes up his position on the platform in the early evening and waits for the dugong to resume feeding. is of an age where it is just learning to breathe. Part of the patterning on the body of the mother dugong refers to the phosphorescentglow (osulal zugalal) seen in the water created at night by the dugong as it surfaces to breathe. In the dark of night it was the observation of this phosphorescence that enabled the hunter to know the exact position of the dugong beneath the Nath.