This winter it is our privilege to present 'Gunnai Vibrations', a major exhibition of new works by proud Gunnai / Yorta Yorta / Gunditmarra artist Richard Young. 'Gunnai Vibrations' is Young’s first exhibition to be presented on Country, and every work being shown has been created specifically for this powerful exhibition.

Young’s vivid, visceral painting is really like no other. He allows the whispers and calls of his ancestors to guide the making of each work, and where his major 2021 exhibition Scarred Species (held at Yering Station in the Yarra Valley) confronted the pain of the Gippsland Frontier Wars head-on, Gunnai Vibrations is a much softer, more celebratory body of work. By spending time with each of these large-scale works we too might hear the whispers and calls of Young’s ancestors.

The works are each entirely unique in character, and emerge from layers of built-up pigment that has been scratched and gauged away to reveal an inner history.

The colours are brilliant but through Young’s working process they are given a subtlety that invites close inspection.

The paintings are also, by virtue of their large scale, deeply immersive. Each envelopes us in a veil of thick, saturated pigment that elicits voices from another time—another time but not another place.

These are stories about the place known now as Gippsland, and known also as Gunnailand, where in a time before European settlement proud tribes lived both on and within the land. Gunnai Vibrations is a special opportunity for everyone to hear their songs and to share in the joy of their way of life.