- Artist: Lorraine Kabbindi White
- Art Centre: Independent artist
- Region: Victoria
Artwork Story
Lorraine Kabbindi White is an artist who lives in Melbourne, Victoria. She was born in Darwin, Northern Territory in 1991. Her mother is a west Arnhem Kunwinjku Mok clan woman and her father is a non-Aboriginal Australian. Kabbindi grew up with her mother’s family in Gunbalanya and at Kabulwarnamyo on the traditional country (Mankung Djang) of her late grandfather, Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek AO, and with her father at Jabiru where she went to school.
As a custodian of the culture and traditions of her people, she preserves the stories she learned as a child through her art. She learned to paint in her grandfather’s style at his side both at Kabulwarnamyo and on his frequent visits to her home in Jabiru. He remains her inspiration and she continues to paint in his specific West Arnhem plateau “Stone Country” x-ray style – depicting spirit beings, animals and plants from her grandfather’s country.
In December 2010 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney launched a retrospective of her grandfather’s paintings. Along with several of his other grandchildren she was commissioned by the MCA to undertake a large scale mural as an additional feature of this exhibition.
Lorraine Kabbindi White had a successful first solo exhibition of her paintings in 2012 at Qdos Art Gallery in Lorne, Victoria: Kundenge bok – footsteps.
In December 2013, with her aunty Lois Nadjamerrek, they were both honoured to be invited to the opening of the National Museum of Australia’s Old Masters exhibition to represent her grandfather’s painting contributions.
In 2014 she entered a painting into the 31st Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award [NATSIAA]. The painting was accepted into the Salon Des Refuses and successfully sold there.