DANIEL MELLOR - PERPETUAL (NGARAY)

DANIEL MELLOR
PERPETUAL (NGARAY),  2022
122 x 160 cm
Photographic print on stainless steel
 
REGION
Mackay QLD
 
PROVENANCE
N.Smith Gallery, Sydney (label attached verso)
Private collection, Sydney
Art Leven, Gadigal, NSW
 
EXHIBITIONS
PHOTO2022, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 29 April – 21 May 2022 (another example)
Danie Mellor: Recent Works, N.Smith Gallery, Sydney, 29 March – 29 April 2023 (another example)
Serpent: Aboriginal Art from Australia, Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, Morocco, 21 July 2023 – 28 January 2024 (another example)
 
STORY
In Perpetual (Ngaray), Danie Mellor harnesses the luminous surface of stainless steel to create a striking photographic work that meditates on memory, time, and the enduring presence of Country. The image—highly detailed and rendered in Mellor’s signature cool-toned palette—reflects both the natural world and the viewer themselves, drawing them into a layered dialogue between past and present, self and landscape. The title Ngaray, drawn from the artist’s Mamu and Ngadjon heritage, speaks to a state of continuity and spirit that transcends linear time.
 
The use of stainless steel as a substrate is deliberate: it evokes permanence, modernity, and reflection—both literal and conceptual. Mellor’s landscape is not simply a scene but a portal into ancestral knowledge systems, where stories are held in land and water, and where presence is felt rather than seen. By merging contemporary materials with deeply cultural content, Perpetual (Ngaray) challenges the viewer to consider how Country endures—alive, remembered, and speaking—through colonial interruption, and into perpetuity.