Through this painting, Niah Juella Mcleod revisits memories of her non-Aboriginal grandfather, who once ran a fly-fishing school in Jindabyne, on Monaro Country.
 “It’s thanks to him that I hold so many memories of this region. The Stringybark is our emblematic tree — a tree of profound significance for our Yuin community,” she explains.
“It’s a variety of eucalyptus. It feels like fishing in the heart of the eucalyptus forests, where my grandfather taught fly-fishing. Every spring, we would go there to learn, or simply to try.”

Unknowingly, her maternal grandfather had settled precisely upon the Aboriginal land from which Niah’s father originated.

In this way, Bana Gugaa Waraawara transcends the simple remembrance of a lived experience. The work becomes a space of resonance — between family history, artistic gesture, and Aboriginal cosmology.
Through this series, Niah Juella Mcleod invites us to slow down, to feel, and to rediscover how to see the world through a profound sensitivity — one deeply rooted in the land itself.