Girramay Traditional Owner
Weaver,Painter and Ceramicist
Maureen Beeron is a Girramay woman of the Murray River area. She lives at the Jumbun Community near Murray Falls, north-west of Cardwell.
Maureen is a weaver of wungarr, traditional lawyer cane eel traps, jawun bicornual baskets and is skilled in traditional string making from bark. Her cousin-sister passed on these weaving skills to Maureen who continues to create these traditional functional artworks.
When creating jawun, Maureen collects the lawyer cane from the rainforest at the Jumbun community, removes the spiky outer ‘skin’ of the cane and prepares the cane from splitting by passing it through the fire. The cane is then finely split and woven into the jawun bicornual shape. Some of her notable past works include a large jawun and and extra large jawun made for carrying babies. A similar process is carried to create wungarr traditionally used to trap eels in freshwater creeks.
Maureen’s eel traps have been exhibited in the ‘Woven Purpose Exhibition’ at the Craft Queensland Gallery in Brisbane in 2005 and the Girringun Gallery at the Dreaming Festival in 2006. Since 2004, she has also exhibited in local galleries throughout the region including COCA (Cairns Contemporary Art Gallery), Tanks Art Centre, Artwork Mission Beach Art Gallery, Hinchinbrook Regional Art Gallery and the Girringun Gallery in Cardwell. Her eel traps have been acquired by private collectors within Australia.
Maureen is also a painter who expresses her knowledge and cultural experiences through her artwork. The traditional baskets and other objects she makes are a common theme in her paintings.
Exhibitions:
2012 Bagu Visits Mission, Unique Frames, Mission Beach
2011/12 Across Country Five Years Of Indigenous Australian art, GOMA QLD
2011 Bagu With Jiman, Indigenous Ceramic Art Award Exhibition, Shepparton Art Museum VIC
2011 Girringun Guni Mara, Merenda Gallery, Fremantle WA
2011 QR Tilt Train, Art + Place Project, Launched Cairns September 2011
2011 Bagu on the Strand, Strand Ephemera, Townsville (Artistic Excellence Award)
2011 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, Cairns Cruise Liner Terminal
2011 Bunyaydinyu Bagu, Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane
2011 Spinifex Country and Beyond, Gatakers Artspace, Townsville
2011 Dulgu-Barra Bagu, Umbrella Studios, Townsville
2010 Pay Attention, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2010 27th Telstra National A & TSI Art Exhibition, Museum & Art Gallery of NT, Darwin
2010 Girringun Yunggul One Together, Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane
2009/10 Mundi – Together, Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre, Cardwell
2009 Floating Life, Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
2009 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair,Tanks Art Centre, Cairns
2009 Jettison Wove, Craft Qld, Travelling Exhibition
2008/09 Blak Roots, KickArts Contemporary Arts, Cairns
2008 Jettison Wove, Craft Queensland, Brisbane
2006 Wabu-Barra: Art from the Rainforest, Townsville Cultural Centre
2005 The Woven Purpose, Qld Premiers Cabinet Display, CQ Gallery, Brisbane
