Heather Koowootha’s works for her 2023 solo exhibition at Cairns Art Gallery explored the ritual significance of local native flora based and their medicinal and magical properties.

This exhibition forms part of the Cairns Art Gallery online First Nations Research Archive developed as part of the Gallery’s online Legacy Archive produced to celebrate the Gallery’s 30th anniversary.

For this exhibition Heather Koowootha drew on inspiration from traditional ecological knowledge of plants passed down to her from her mother (of the Yidinji peoples, Yarrabah) and father (of the Wik Mungkan peoples, Aurukun).

The exhibition presented a series of 16 botanical illustrations that were commissioned by the Gallery for the Ritual exhibition, and which were subsequently purchased for the Gallery Collection. Each work documented distinct knowledge systems and cultural practices established by both Koowootha’s parents and their Ancestors. Her illustrations and texts carry important knowledge associated with the medicinal and ritual uses of plants in birth, women’s business, marriage, death and other important ceremonies of the Yidinji and Wik Mungkan peoples.

In the supporting exhibition catalogue Freja Carmichael from the University of Queensland, describes Koowootha’s extensive botanical knowledge:

Each drawing offers a reminder of layered interconnections existing between people, lands, waters and all living beings. For example, Cheese Fruit 2020 expresses how the cheese fruit plant is applied to the skin to treat colds and infections, particularly around the time of the wet season in the Cape York area. The stories and lived experiences bound to each plant are cited in Koowootha’s hand-written texts that accompany each work. The individual stories are vividly illustrated in bright colour palettes and energetic shapes that celebrate the vitality of the plants and the knowledge that continues to transcend years, seasons, and many lifetimes of experience.