Artist
Kirli Saunders (OAM) is a proud Gunai Woman and award-winning writer, multidisciplinary artist and consultant. She’s partnered with global organisations, including Google, Vogue, Fender, Qantas and Aesop, to create and cultivate change. Her celebrated books, among others, include Bindi, Our Dreaming and Returning (2023, Magabala). She is currently writing her anticipated novel, Yaraman, a Graphic novel, All Rise (Panterra), and her third poetry collection, Eclipse (JOAN), assisted by Creative Australia.
As an artist, Kirli’s works span many mediums, including painting, printmaking, fibre, sculpture, installation and digital. Kirli has exhibited with Shoalhaven Regional, Wollongong Regional, Good Space, Red Earth Arts Precinct, Cement Fondue, First Draft and Ngununggula Galleries, as well as Open FIeld and Sculpture in the Gardens. Her solo show, Returning, held at SHAC in 2021, was supported by Creative Australia.
In 2024, Kirli was commissioned by Denver Zoo in the USA to decolonise their Down Under exhibit, designing a series of murals and visual elements for installation and branding. Kirli was also commissioned by Transport NSW to design and create a mural for public art.
Kirli’s drone installation with the Fremantle Biennale, Buungbaa Ma Ndhu (2023), was the first iteration of the project on the East Coast of Australia, with thanks to the Gundungurra Community, First Lights and Ngununggula. It has been adapted for Common Ground’s Dreamy series.
Kirli created TRACES with Kamsani Bin Salleh, a digital voice-to-art installation for VIVID 2022, with thanks to partners Google, Magabala Books and Sydney Opera House. Her Carry On design was commissioned by Fender x Children's Ground in 2023.
In 2022, Kirli co-led a week-long residency at Bundanon Trust with Aunty Loretta Parsley, assisted by Oranges and Sardines Foundation, leading a group of 10 women in creating a collaborative possum skin cloak for the Bundanon Trust Siteworks exhibition and collection 2022.
Kirli’s digital prints have been commissioned by local and state governments for public art and clothing designs. Her conceptual designs with TILT Industrial Design were shortlisted for the Yananurala Project with the City of Sydney 2023 and Shoalhaven City Council. Kirli’s Mate You’re Standing on Stolen Land, and We Don’t Cry We Don’t Miss have been commissioned as part of the permanent collection at Wollongong and Shoalhaven Regional Galleries.
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Buungbaa-ma-ndhu – rise (as the sun), all of you.
Award winning Gundungurra raised Gunai Writer and Artist, Kirli Saunders (OAM), energizes mugaru (cold winter) with her synchronous installation of language and light, Buungbaa-ma-ndhu meaning rise (as the sun), all of you.
Remnant of a bedtime story told around the campfire, Saunders’ poetic bi-lingual digital work rouses audiences to collaborate and create a powerful future together, ‘to rise, like light from the fire, mountain top…whirlwind, diamond python, black cockatoo.’ Conjured with welcome dance from local First Nations families and community, this choreographed and responsive drone show is presented by Fremantle Biennale x Ngununggula for First Lights.
Sound Design: Envelope Audio
Narrated by: Kirli Saunders
Animation: Jarrad Russell
Technical Partner: Stellar Lights and EAVP
TRACES is a voice-to-art audiovisual installation that connects us to Country by award-winning First Nations artists and writers, Kamsani Bin Salleh & Kirli Saunders. TRACES unfolded at Sydney Opera House for VIVID 2022, with thanks to Magabala Books and Google Creative Lab.
In celebration of NAIDOC week, Dan Sultan has brought together Aboriginal artists Kiya Watt and Kirli Saunders to create two pieces of unique and very playable Fender art, to be auctioned for Children’s Ground.
Mate You're Standing on Stolen Land, Kirli Saunders (OAM) 2022, Vinyl on Timber, Wollongong Art Gallery for Languages of the Land exhibition.
Greedy, Kirli Saunders (OAM) 2022, Mixed Media installation, Cement Fondue for Linger Dash Talk
Commissioned for ‘Linger, Dash, Talk’ 2023, Greedy is an installation by award-winning Gunai writer and Queer woman Kirli Saunders. Designed on Yuin Country, this work incorporates spoken poetry, shells from Yuin lands, and a fibre wall hanging which melds eucalyptus plant dyed jute, with vibrant fabricated cotton abalones.
Derived from a sketch drawn after cleaning and cooking abelone with the Aunties on Yuin Country, this work examines the capitalist and colonial consumption of our Country and inherently our bodies, including especially those female, blak and queer. It pays homage to the continuation of our knowledge, and our ways despite these oppressive systems.
Mimicking vulvas presented in a rainbow smattering of color (reminiscent of culturally significant abalone shells) and underpinned by earthy tones, Saunders’ work celebrates the survival and resistance of blak LGBTIQA+ women and the strong matriarchs who surround and protect them.
We Don’t Cry We Don’t Miss, Kirli Saunders, 2023, Sculpture in the Garden, Wollongong Botanic Garden
This sculptural poem features a found and repurposed rusted mattress frame incorporating shiny silver metal lettering which reads “We don’t cry. We don’t miss”, a phrase told to Kirli’s Mum by ‘carers’ in the children’s homes after she was taken away. Melding land with decay, and galvanised language with an object of rest (outside of the familiarity of home), this work confronts the historical and continued forcible removal of First Nations children from family and Country.
Saunders highlights the fact that in order for land to be cared for, First Nations children must be able to sit and learn in relation with those Elders and Custodians on Country. And for that to happen, youth incarceration and forcible removal policies and practices will need to change.
It’s a work which aims to confront audiences with our shared history, and create a space where we can collectively acknowledge the eco-grief we feel, and rally to support the self determined actions of First Nations communities, so our kids can learn from Elders and communities can care for Country as they always have.
Garrigarran connects us to Country, honouring yesterday, today and tomorrow on Dharawal lands. A multilayered digital print on aluminium at Port Kembla commissioned by Wollongong City Council, created by local Gunai artist, Kirli Saunders, this mural features a range of shellfish, a local salt-water source of nourishment. Garrigarran welcomes the audience to ground themselves by the sea and to gather with family and community, as local First Nations peoples have here for all times. It welcomes families and community to care for Country, in the same way she cares for us.
Returning
A visual poetry exhibition by Kirli Saunders.
