Niah Juella McLeod employs a visual symbolic language that is codified, organic and vibrant, forming the basis of her artistic expression. Through this unique visual vocabulary, she weaves narratives that blend personal memory and collective history, each of her works resonating with the imprint of the land, Aboriginal spiritual heritage and lived experience.
In Bana Gugaa (rain on stringy bark), the artist depicts rain streaming down eucalyptus trunks, an image that is both poetic and sensory. The term Gugaa evokes both the rings of the wood, translated here as concentric circles, and the fibrous texture of stringy bark.
By juxtaposing rain and bark on the same plane, Niah merges two natural elements in a meditative composition, where the surface becomes a meeting place for matter, movement and memory.
