I Am Mother Earth

'I Am Mother Earth' layers digital portraits, landscapes and traditional hand-painted marks to connect Mangala Country, the Sky People, ancestral memory and the space between earth, body and cosmos.

The land I come from is Mangala Country. My people are Sky People. I make art because I was born to do it.

In I Am Mother Earth, I layer digital portraits, landscapes and images of Country, printing them onto paper before painting directly onto the surface by hand. Through this process, photography and painting come together as one language. Photography is what I see. Painting is what I feel.

My ancestors came from the sky to live on earth and care for the land. We were placed here as custodians, not separate from Country but woven into it. The land watches us as we watch over it. We belong to each other.

The portraits and landscapes in this work are not separate. Body, Country, memory and spirit are layered together. The painted marks move across the photographic surface like constellations, mapping story, movement and ancestral presence. Each dot becomes a point of light. Each layer holds a connection between earth and sky.

Mangala Country is more than a place. It is protection. When I step onto that land, I feel held, as if the sky itself is resting on my shoulders. Capturing and painting this Country strengthens the connection between earth and cosmos, past and future, body and spirit.

This work is not only about what I see. It is about what I feel. I paint the sensation of belonging to something older than time and larger than myself. I paint the space between earth and sky: the place where ancestors travel, where memory lives and where questions remain open.

In response to the theme Archipelago, this project considers Mangala Country as part of a wider constellation of connected worlds: earth, sky, ancestor, memory, body, technology and spirit. It rejects the idea of Country as fixed or isolated. Instead, Country is alive, relational and expansive. Held in the terrestrial and the galactic, the ancient and the new.

BIOGRAPHY

Nuriah Jadai is a Martu and Mangala artist living and working between Newman and Bidyadanga Community in Western Australia. She is an artist with Martumili Artists and Bidyadanga Art Centre. Her practice is deeply influenced by her grandfathers WT and Muuki Taylor OAM, whose cultural knowledge and artistic leadership continue to guide her work.

Born in Derby (Western Australia) and raised between Bidyadanga and Parnngurr (remote Aboriginal Communities), Nuriah’s practice is grounded in her enduring connection to her people, culture and Country. Her multidisciplinary work moves between photography and painting, furniture and fashion design, extending cultural storytelling across material and form. Through photography, Nuriah captures the physical presence of Country, honing in on surface, light, patterns and textures to create immersive works grounded in lived experience. Through painting, she translates sensation, memory and cosmology into layered fields of pattern. Her work reflects a worldview in which land and sky are interconnected and inseparable from identity. Working across traditional knowledge and contemporary techniques, Nuriah situates her practice within both ancient lineage and present-day discourse. Her art holds space for belonging, continuity and the ongoing relationship between people and place.