Danie Mellor Shadow land (water talking story place)

Depicted here is Wiinggina/Lake Eacham, a volcanic crater lake and a site of the serpent Yamani in the Atherton Tablelands. This is Ngadjon-jii, Danie Mellor’s Country, and the work was created following fieldtrips and visits to the tablelands, made over several years. It is a place that is ‘profoundly beautiful’, says Mellor. ‘The gentle, mineral-coloured azure waters contrast with verdant greens and rich, primordial forms and vegetation of towering fig trees and lush rainforest.’

Such a landscape is evident in Shadow land (water talking story place); however, Mellor’s purposeful sepia toning of the work has been used to locate this scene in a period of history documented by early photographic techniques. His inclusion of bama (people), who return our gaze while drifting in a canoe near the lake’s shoreline, reflects on the complex histories of colonised landscapes from Mellor’s Country, and the ethnographic ‘othering’ of Indigenous peoples.

This is the second consecutive year that Mellor has been selected as a Wynne finalist. He is also a finalist in this year’s Archibald.