David Doyle
Barkindji/Malyangapa people, New South Wales
Within this body of work I share with you our deep knowledge of the abundance of our Country and many aspects of our ancient foodways.
kamuru or river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), was chosen as Australia’s favourite tree in 2022, but has been a favourite of the Barkindji for many more years. Standing stoic, kamuru watches over our mother Baaka, protecting and supporting her as she meanders through Barkindji Country. But to us Barkindji, kamuru is more than a protector, more than a prone sentinel and more than a tree. I have tried to capture the importance of kamuru within this display of red gum artefacts while showing its beauty and significance to us Barkindji.
For millennia kamuru has watched over generations of Barkindji and seen the ways of the old people, witnessed the white man come, witnessed the devastation of our mother Baaka. They have sheltered many of our people under their branches. They offer warmth when used to fuel our fire. They have kept us cool on the days when it is too hot to be out in the sun. They give us medicine when we are unwell and food when we are hungry.
Providing a means to carry food and water, bowls to prepare medicine, canoes to keep us dry and help us to collect food and an umbrella on drizzly days. They have helped birth thousands of Barkindji in their hollowed-out trunks or under their branches. Standing proud over the bodies of our old people who have passed on to the dreamtime.
For Barkindji, kamuru means shelter, it means medicine and food, it means hot and cold, wet and dry, birth and death.
kamuru is more than a tree, kamuru is Barkindji.
Easy read
I have used my skills as a carver, as well as casting many objects in bronze. I have made these works to help you to understand the beauty and importance of kamuru (river red gum) to us as Barkindji people.
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David Doyle is a Barkindji artist, poet and educator based in Broken Hill. He has been an Aboriginal Health Practitioner for over twenty years and a Senior Aboriginal Health Worker for the Royal Flying Doctor Service for the past five years, travelling across the Far West into South Australia and Queensland. Highly regarded and deeply respected in his community, he is involved as a workshop teacher for the Men’s Sheds in Menindee and Wilcannia and has been teaching in the Menindee Central School (his former school) Art Program, through the Royal Flying Doctors Service for several years.
As an emerging carver and artist, he creates work across a diverse range of media. His ongoing research into traditional methods of harvesting and processing traditional food sources is a great source of inspiration for his visual arts practice. He carves native timbers; emu eggs and freshwater mussel shells and casts objects in bronze and works with slumped glass. He creates works that talk to the links between caring for community and Country and notes that his success would not be possible without the support of his family and community.
He has participated in local exhibitions, including Fresh Bark 2018, Baaka Stories 2019, and the Maari Ma Indigenous Art Awards in 2018, 2019 and 2021. In 2020 he facilitated an emu egg carving demonstration for Sydney Living Museums at the invitation of Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist and curator, Dr Jonathan Jones. David follows the traditions of his great-grandmother who was an emu carver and now David is the only other emu egg carver in his family.
In 2022, David was a participant of the Cementa Regional Artist Mentoring Program, and was in the group exhibition at Firstdraft Gallery, Woolloomooloo, Sydney. He has recently launched a cultural tourism enterprise called Wontanella, on Barkindji Country in Menindee, Far West New South Wales.
David Doyle, Mutawintji, 2022
Photo: Kent Morris
kamuru – river red gum
2022–23
Broken Hill, Wilyakali Country
Melbourne, Wurundjeri Country
pulthuru (bark canoe)
2022–2023
Broken Hill/Menindee, Wilyakali, Barkandji/Barkindji and Malyangapa Country
river red gum
(1-62) 240.0 x 300.0 x 100.0 cm (overall) (variable); 40.0 x 300.0 x 100.0 cm (plinth)
spears, clapsticks, boomerangs, clubs, coolamon, burl bowl, shield
river red gum
mussel shells, yabbies, bush bananas, turtle shell, golden perch/yellow belly fish skeleton
bronze
murnong, karkala (bush bananas), karnpuka (quandong), cumbungi, rosella
emu eggs
with eucalyptus, red gum and campfire essential oil
All works courtesy the artist.
Nici Cumpston, Zena Cumpston, David Doyle, Kent Morris, Adrianne Semmens, Raymond Zada
Barkandji/Barkindji/Malyangapa people, New South Wales
nets
2023
Broken Hill, Wilyakali Country
Adelaide, Kaurna Country
Melbourne, Wurundjeri Country
spiny-headed sedge (Cyperus gymnocaulos)
(1-2) 50.0 x 300.0 cm (each) (variable)
Courtesy the artists.
Photography by Christian Capurro at Bunjil Place Gallery, 2023.