Melissa Stannard.
‘Baawaa ngay miimi - sista my sista’
Year Created: 2021.
Medium: Cotton Cloth Cynaotype.
Width X Height: 2.13 m x 1.52 m.
Not For Sale
Using a photographic process of working without a camera, while utilizing the power of the sun to create photographic prints that capture moments of space and time, traces of place and that are embedded with feeling and memory. This large cyanotpye was created at Lake weyba with my baawaa's (my sisters) and various plant matter that represented each of us and our collective sisterhood. The strength support and authenticity I feel from these women, allows me to be vulnerable and yet safe, strong and yet gentle, we three individual artist’s mothers, friends and women guide support honour and uplift one another. Sometimes a mirror for what needs to be seen, to be heard but always a genuine loving support.
Warranggal yuurri – strong women’s spirit
Melissa Stannard
Yuwallaraay artist, poet, jeweller, researcher and curator.
A narrative, multi disciplinary artist, constant gatherer, collector of the lost and found, storytelling is an important part of Melissa’s cultural heritage as a Yuwaalaraay, Gamillaraay and Koama woman and a way to express, share, and bring awareness to issues that confront difficult subject matter. Melissa’s aim is to find poetic healing for herself and the community’s lived experience, through engagement with themes of identity, belonging, memory, collective trauma, abuse, and ultimately, survival. Melissa is often immersed in nature as it helps balance out the tough topics she works on, and explores the cultural practise of Winangali, deep listening.
A graduate of CAIA- Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art at Griffith University, where she is a research assistant within the IRU-Indigenous Research Unit, a Kungullanji Scholar and current mentor. Melissa’s love of learning means she aims to return to university to undergo her Masters in the near future.