Mark Nodea / My Mother’s Country – Ngarrgarroon (20035)

Born in Derby in 1968, Mark Nodea is a highly regarded Gija artist with deep family and cultural connections to the East Kimberley. He lives in Turkey Creek and is a respected figure within his community. A former Chairperson of Warmun Art Centre, Mark has long played an active role in sharing Gija culture and maintaining the traditional ochre painting practices of the region.

Growing up in the East Kimberley during the 1970s and 1980s, Mark was immersed in Gija language, culture and Country from an early age. At Ngalangangpum School, his education followed a two-way learning model that brought Gija knowledge and Western education together. His early cultural and artistic learning took place in an extraordinary environment shaped by senior Gija artists and Elders including Queenie McKenzie, Hector Jandany, Jack Britten and Rover Thomas.

Mark is widely recognised as an exceptionally gifted artist, with a particular mastery of natural ochres, a medium deeply connected to the artistic traditions of the East Kimberley. While his practice has also included charcoal drawing, figurative works in acrylic and printmaking, it is through ochre that Mark's work particularly resonates.

His paintings range from bold, expressive compositions to remarkably pared-back landscapes in which sweeping lines, creeks, waterholes and landforms map Country from above. Many of Mark's works are topographical views, presenting the landscape as though looking down across it and showing the relationships between its natural features. Through his distinctive minimalist approach, Mark reduces the vast East Kimberley landscape to its essential forms while retaining an extraordinary sense of place and scale.

Mark’s deep connection to his Country comes through his mother, acclaimed Gija artist Nancy Nodea, and the knowledge passed down through his family. Nancy was born in the bush on Texas Downs, known in the Gija language as Ngarrgarroon, and was a Traditional Custodian for this Country. Her Country extends through the Texas Downs area and south towards Purnululu, encompassing places that continue to appear throughout Mark's paintings, including Buffalo Hole, Kilfoyle, Balungarr, Station Creek and surrounding Country.

Through his father, Walmajarri Elder Hanson Boxer, Mark also has strong connections to Country around Yakanarra and Cherabun. These family connections allow Mark to paint both his mother's Gija Country and his father's Walmajarri Country, giving his work a broad geographical and cultural foundation across the East Kimberley and Fitzroy Valley regions.

Mark's contribution to his community extends beyond painting. He served with the all-Gija patrol attached to Kimberley Squadron of NORFORCE, where intimate knowledge of Country and bush skills were an important part of the patrol's work. In 2014, Mark and other surviving members of the patrol received retrospective military service medals in recognition of their service.

This history became the subject of an important collaborative artwork in 2024 when Mark joined fellow Gija veterans Richard Thomas, Owen Thomas and Peter Thomas to create From Massacres to Medals – A Story of Redemption and Recognition. Painted in natural ochre sourced from Gija Country, the monumental three-panel work was Highly Commended in the 2024 Napier Waller Art Prize and subsequently exhibited at Australian Parliament House.

Mark also continues to share Gija cultural knowledge with younger generations and visitors to Country. In 2025 he led the Ngarranggarni: Gija Art and Country on-Country teaching program, working with Gija Elders to teach students about Country, language, storytelling, ceremony and painting.

Mark's work has received significant recognition over more than two decades. His distinctive kangaroo design was selected for the Royal Australian Mint's 2002 $1 Silver Kangaroo, issued to mark the tenth anniversary of the Silver Kangaroo series. In 2013, his painting Texas Country received the $20,000 City of Greater Geraldton Award for Excellence at the Mid West Art Prize. He was again a finalist in the Mid West Art Prize in 2019 and was selected as a finalist in the national Mandorla Art Award in 2026.

Mark has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally. His first solo exhibition at Alison Kelly Gallery in Melbourne in 2003 was a sell-out success, and his 2020 solo exhibition Balungarr at Short St Gallery in Broome was also a sell-out. His work has been included in significant institutional exhibitions including Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, while examples of his work are held in major public and private collections.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

• Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
• Australian Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
• Geelong Gallery, Victoria
• Artbank
• Laverty Collection, Sydney
• Ross Jones Collection, Sydney

SELECTED AWARDS

• 2026 – Finalist, Mandorla Art Award, Holmes à Court Gallery, West Perth, WA
• 2024 – Highly Commended, Napier Waller Art Prize, with Richard Thomas, Owen Thomas and Peter Thomas
• 2019 – Finalist, Mid West Art Prize, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, WA
• 2013 – City of Greater Geraldton Award for Excellence, Mid West Art Prize, for Texas Country

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2020 – Balungarr, Short St Gallery, Broome, WA
• 2003 – Mark Nodea, Alison Kelly Gallery, Melbourne, Vic

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2026 – Mandorla Art Award, Holmes à Court Gallery, West Perth, WA
• 2025 – ReGeneration: Innovation within Tradition, Curved Wall Gallery, Frankston Arts Centre, Vic
• 2024 – Napier Waller Art Prize, Australian Parliament House, Canberra, ACT
• 2019 – Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
• 2019 – Mid West Art Prize Exhibition, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, WA
• 2018 – GIJA Exhibition, Woolloongabba Art Gallery, Qld
• 2014 – Warmun Aboriginal Art, Art Images Gallery, Adelaide, SA
• 2013 – 5th Annual Belle Arti Prize Exhibition
• 2008 – East of East Kimberley: Warmun to Asia, ReDot Gallery, Singapore
• 2007 – Ochre on Board, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
• 2007 – Back to the Board, Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney, NSW
• 2007 – Wolf Creek Crater, Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic
• 2006 – Warmun Art Centre Presents, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney, NSW
• 2005 – Warmun Group Show, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT
• 2003 – Group Show, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT
• 2003 – East Kimberley Show, Short St Gallery, Broome, WA
• 2002 – Coomalie Culture Centre, Batchelor, NT
• 2002 – All That Gija Country, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
• 2002 – Thornquest Gallery, Gold Coast, Qld
• 2002 – New Works from Warmun Community, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT
• 2001 – In Celebration: The Peter Baillie Acquisitive Exhibition, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA

In this powerful painting, Mark Nodea depicts his mother’s Country around Texas Downs Station in the East Kimberley. Mark’s mother, acclaimed Gija artist Nancy Nodea, was born in the bush on Texas Downs and was a Traditional Custodian for this Country. Through his mother, Mark learned the stories and places of this landscape, which continue to form an important part of his own painting practice.

Station Creek and its tributaries flow through Ngarrgarroon Country, travelling towards Balanged Country and Kelly Rock Hole. Buffalo Hole is another important place within this landscape. During the long Dry, the creeks and riverbeds recede and the Country becomes increasingly hot and dry, taking on the deep reds, browns and dark earthy tones so characteristic of the East Kimberley.

By October and November, the heat can be intense as the build-up to the Wet Season begins. When the Wet finally arrives, the change is dramatic. Heavy rain fills the rivers, creeks and tributaries, and the surrounding Country is transformed from dry red earth into a vivid green landscape. Places that have been dry for months come alive again with water and new growth.

Using natural ochres, Mark reduces this vast landscape to sweeping lines, strong forms and broad areas of earthy colour. The painting is a topographical view of his mother’s Country, seen as though looking down across the creeks, river country and landforms below. Rather than depicting the landscape from a conventional horizon, Mark maps Country from above, showing the relationships between its natural features through his distinctive minimalist style.

For Mark, this is also deeply personal Country. His paintings of Texas Downs are grounded in the knowledge passed to him by his mother, Nancy Nodea, and his continuing connection to the places she knew and painted.