Three artists Kirra Weingarth, Dennis Golding and Carmen Glynn-Braun have designed and completed a mural at the Esme Timbery Creative Practice Lab at UNSW in Sydney. The Lab is a specialised arts unit within the UNSW School of the Arts and Media that supports teaching and practice-led research, and manages the School’s performance venues, rehearsal studios and technical resources.
While each of the three mural artists have quite distinctive styles, they are all UNSW alumni and all are Indigenous: Kirra Weingarth is a descendent of the Biri and Juru people of North East Queensland, Dennis Golding is a Kamilaroi/ Gamilaraay artist and Carmen Glynn-Braun is from the Southern Arrernte, Kaytetye, and Ammatyerre nations across Central Australia.
‘In her hands’ mural was commissioned by UNSW to celebrate the naming of this building after Indigenous artist and Bidjigal Elder Esme Timbery. Timbery lives and works in La Perouse and has been exhibiting her work in galleries since 1997. Her shellworked harbour bridges, shoes and other objects are created from wood, glue, cardboard, fabric, glitter and shells gathered from the beaches of the New South Wales south coast.
The mural features Timbery’s hands as a symbol of her passing her knowledge, skills and culture to four living generations of her family, while topographical lines reference the La Perouse headlands and sandstone. The colours – blending from pink to yellow – are inspired by the bold colours of Esme Timbery’s artworks.
The artists’ statement reads: “Through her hands, Esme shares the magic of shellwork with the women in her family, represented by the young hands of Esme’s great-granddaughter Jiyah-lee Bell. This continuation signifies
the importance of transferring culture through physical and oral transmission to sustain intergenerational knowledge.”
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