In the ground floor gallery, Mbararrum artist Jennifer Herd presents Off Country, a powerful new exhibition featuring 35 works showcasing her distinctive pin-holing technique and geometric shield patterning on paper.

Delicately composed yet deeply political, Herd’s work explores themes of resistance, identity, and cultural memory. As Professor Margo Ngawa Neale (formerly National Museum of Australia) aptly describes, Herd’s work is like “an iron fist in a velvet glove.”

Off Country marks a personal shift in focus for the artist. While her previous exhibitions illuminated the veiled history of frontier resistance—particularly in the region of her Mother’s country in North Queensland—these new works also turn inward. They reflect on her own experiences of displacement, resilience, and identity erasure, while celebrating community and cultural reconnection.

“Off Country encapsulates a profound sense of displacement and expresses the trials, triumphs and truths along the lifelong journey back to Mother’s country,” says Herd. “It speaks to the experience of being born separated from ancestral lands, attempted identity erasure through state and faith-based care institutions, and the light found in connecting with other Black Fullas to create new communities and subcultures that helped many like me find their way home.”

Herd’s geometric shield motifs, such as those in Resistance & Revelation, draw on the painted shields of Bama warriors from North Queensland. These shields served not only as protection, but also as emblems of identity and vessels of cultural knowledge. “Shield designs are my way of connecting to my culture and have been an abiding research interest of mine for over 25 years,” says the artist. These patterns, created in the paper by Herd’s signature pinholing technique, carry deep symbolism. “I have used pinholes to highlight the bloody intersection of two cultures. They symbolise the many rainforest shields punctured with bullet holes during frontier conflicts,” says Herd. The violence of these encounters is chillingly underscored by a quote from explorer Christie Palmerston, "Their shields may answer very well for the purposes of their wars, but my rifle drilled through these as if they were sheets of paper."

In several works, Herd introduces a new motif: the map of Australia. The Off Country Maps are a visceral response to the AIATSIS and Norman Tindale maps, which depict the geography of Aboriginal language groups. Rather than aiming for geographical precision, these works confront the myth of terra nullius and lay bare the widespread displacement and violence inflicted on Aboriginal people. Herd isolates the borders of Country from the maps, reconfiguring them into elements reminiscent of camouflage—symbols of the ongoing erasure of Indigenous presence. Visually bold and politically charged, the maps declare a defiant truth: despite colonization, Aboriginal peoples remain—resisting, reclaiming, and enduring on their land.

In an exciting evolution of her practice, Herd has also introduced a series of six sculptural garden lights—three crafted from stainless steel and three from Corten steel. These works translate her signature pinholed shield designs into perforated metal forms, allowing light to shine through the patterns. The result is a striking interplay of shadow, steel, and storytelling, extending her cultural motifs into the realm of sculptural installation.

Off Country is a powerful exploration of cultural endurance, memory, and survival—an invitation to witness personal and collective histories from one of Australia’s most vital urban Indigenous art voices.