MYANGAH PIRATE

Old ways

A very special guest at Giiyong Festival this year is Myangah Pirate, a respected professional multi-disciplinary artist who uses traditional materials on a contemporary base to create sculptures, weapons, tools, totemic items, paintings and so much more.

Words from Pirate:

 'My name is Pirate, Skin name Myangah "sea eagle", a Yuin man, Budawang Clan, Butler family from the Ulladulla area, my mobs Country. 

Been practising my art across all forms of visual arts since childhood, taught to me by my Grandfather, in the sense I only work with traditional materials sourced in Country or through cultural reciprocal trade / gifting including ochre, skins, animal parts, bark, wood, feathers or any other construct I use. 

I've been exhibiting for 3 decades and my artworks are all over the world in various countries. A family tradition is wooden artefacts etc, burnt or sculptured, inlaid with natural materials. 

Stone axes, spears, hunting / warfare weapons, possum skin cloaks, sinew, teeth, claws cloaks, whatever, done Old Way, Mob Way. 

At Giiyong I will sit and work on a possum skin cloak under production. Using a traditional kit made of bone, sinew, skins etc, I'll do a demo, however the construction will be done with modern tools, cotton etc.

I'll also do a wood burning under progress to demonstrate that particular form of modern day expression of our Culture, well known from my mob.'

We can't wait to have Pirate as part of the program at Giiyong Festival 2023.