Keith Wikmunea's cockatoos depict his family totem
Keith Wikmunea, Wik-Mungkan/Wik-Alkan people, Queensland Australia b.1967 / Theewith Yot. A! | Lots of White Cockatoo (detail) 2024 / Natural earth pigments with synthetic binders on carved milkwood / 250 x 170.7 x 80cm / Purchased 2024 with funds from the Bequest of Noela Clare Deutscher, in memory of her parents, A. Evans Deutscher and Clare Deutscher, through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Keith Wikmunea / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA / View full image
Seven characterful white theewith (cockatoos) sit atop a yuk thanchal (milkwood tree) in Keith Wikmunea’s Theewith Yot. A! | Lots of White Cockatoo 2024. Theewith are significant to Wikmunea as they are his puulwuy (father’s totem).
A familiar sight in Queensland, these spectacular brilliant white sulphur-crested cockatoos are inquisitive and social, travelling and roosting in large flocks. Known for their expressive body language, their striking crest is a direct reflection of their mood, fanning out to signal excitement, curiosity or alarm.
Aurukun carvings depict family and totems as inseparable entities, celebrating the bond between community and environment. For generations, Wik peoples have used milkwood trees to create ancestral artefacts and funerary or law poles, native to northern Australia, the tree is cyclone and termite resistant, fire retardant, and bird attractant. Wikmunea’s tree reflects the artist’s Thu’ Apalech people, from Cape York Peninsula; the rust and white ochres were sourced from Country, while the white dotting references designs traditionally painted on the body.
Keith Wikmunea installs & paints his artwork at QAGOMA
Keith Wikmunea Theewith Yot. A! | Lots of White Cockatoo 2024
Keith Wikmunea, Wik-Mungkan/Wik-Alkan people, Queensland Australia b.1967 / Theewith Yot. A! | Lots of White Cockatoo 2024 / Natural earth pigments with synthetic binders on carved milkwood / 250 x 170.7 x 80cm / Purchased 2024 with funds from the Bequest of Noela Clare Deutscher, in memory of her parents, A. Evans Deutscher and Clare Deutscher, through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Keith Wikmunea / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA / View full image
Keith Wikmunea, Wik-Mungkan/Wik-Alkan people, Queensland Australia b.1967 / Theewith Yot. A! | Lots of White Cockatoo (detail) 2024 / Natural earth pigments with synthetic binders on carved milkwood / 250 x 170.7 x 80cm / Purchased 2024 with funds from the Bequest of Noela Clare Deutscher, in memory of her parents, A. Evans Deutscher and Clare Deutscher, through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Keith Wikmunea / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA / View full image
On display in Great and Small: Kindred Creatures in Indigenous Australian Art
21 June 2025 – 3 May 2027
Queensland Art Gallery
Galleries 1 & 2 (Dr Paul Eliadis AM Galleries)
Free entry