Artist Talk with Desirai Saunders

Come and enjoy a thought-provoking conversation with artist Desirai Saunders as part of her SafeSpace Artist Residency with Aboriginal Art Co, where she shares her current exhibition, Tip the Bucket.

Tip the Bucket explores the Murri crab bucket as a metaphor for how systems of scarcity and colonisation continue to shape internalised survival behaviours within First Nations communities. The exhibition reflects on the conditions that give rise to these dynamics—environments where opportunity can feel limited, visibility carries weight, and survival instincts are learned and carried across generations.

DESIRAI (Desirai Saunders) is a Gunggari digital illustrator whose work centres on contemporary First Nations experiences. Her practice focuses on character-driven illustration, using bold forms, expressive faces, and strong colour to explore emotion, identity, and the realities of navigating modern life as an Aboriginal woman.

Her work places strong emphasis on visual representation, particularly for First Nations youth, reflecting the everyday lived experiences of mob today. Drawing from personal observation and community, DESIRAI creates characters that feel familiar and emotionally direct, offering moments of recognition rather than idealisation. Through this approach, her illustrations contribute to normalising contemporary Aboriginal presence across digital, commercial, and public spaces.

Through humour, exaggeration, and accessible visual language, Tip the Bucket invites viewers to slow down and sit with what has become normalised through survival. Rather than offering answers, the exhibition creates space for reflection—asking what might begin to shift when inherited ways of thinking are made visible and when the bucket itself is gently disturbed.

Event Details:
Date: Thursday, 12 February 2026
Time: 5:30pm–7:00pm
Venue: Aboriginal Art Co — 1/23 Anthony Street, West End, QLD 4101

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Aboriginal Art Co, Unit1/23 Anthony Street, West End, Australia

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