Chapman & Bailey

If like us, you love living with First Nations art, a bark painting is something every collection should include.

These two small but powerful works come from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre (known simply as Buku by those who know it well), one of Australia's leading Indigenous-owned art and culture centres. Located in Yirrkala, in Northeast Arnhem Land, Buku supports more than 300 Yolŋu artists and filmmakers, nurturing cultural traditions while producing some of the world's most celebrated contemporary Indigenous art.

If you’ve experienced the extraordinary Bark Salon currently showing at NGV: Australia, saw Yolŋu Power at the Art Gallery of New South Wales last year, or visited the new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met in New York, you'll already know the power and beauty of bark paintings.

These works may be modest in size, but they carry immense cultural knowledge and presence.

Images:
1. Milminyina Dhamarrandji, ‘Dhambadiny,’ 2022. Earth Pigments On Stringybark (Eucalyptus Tetradonta) 71 x 43 cm (Buku 6495-22)
2. Detail of above.
3. Lamangirra #2 Gumana, ‘Garrapara,’ 2023. Earth Pigments On Stringybark (Eucalyptus Tetradonta) 64 x 32 cm (Buku 3966-23)
4. Detail of above.

Read the in-depth stories behind these artworks on the cbOne Gallery website (link in bio), and explore our Art Centre page to discover more exceptional works from Buku and other Art Centres.
At Chapman & Bailey, we make custom aluminium cradles that can be adjusted as bark naturally responds to changes in humidity and temperature. The face clips are spray-painted to match each bark, providing conservation support while allowing the work to move safely over time.

Some artefacts are so compelling that a frame would only distract from their presence.

To that, we say "clear acrylic box!"

Here's workshop extraordinaire Alexei carefully constructing one such object. He uses UV resin to seamlessly join the edges, creating an almost invisible- but very protective- case, for something special to sit inside.

And finally, the fit-up.

After passing through multiple departments and many skilled hands, the works arrive with Connor and the fit-up team, where artwork, glazing and frame are united for the first time.

It's one of our favourite stages in the workshop - the point where all the individual parts come together and the finished work is finally revealed.

Work by
Made for and .

Prepared in our workshop by Connor and the fit-up team.

Joy can come out of even the biggest mess - it’s what you make of it!

These brilliant sea creatures are made from Ghost Nets, discarded fishing nets and industrial gear that drift through our oceans, continuing to trap marine life and damage fragile ecosystems.

Every year, millions of tonnes of fishing gear are lost at sea, becoming persistent plastic pollution that washes up on coastlines around the world.

These works are created by artists at Erub Arts in the Torres Strait - a ghost net hotspot. Through their practice, they transform marine debris into powerful artworks and design objects, including large-scale commissions such as Taba Naba (2026) at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco.

Lavinia Ketchell
KJ, 2023
Ghost nets, aluminium wire and twine
53 x 51 x 9 cm

Racy Oui-Pitt
Tulu, 2023
Ghost net, rope and twine
16 x 19 x 6 cm

Jimmy John Thaiday
Wahmere (Black Tail), 2024
Ghost net, rope and wire
16 x 69 x 74 cm

Take a look at our online stockroom

While the prints are being dry-mounted and prepared in the workshop, Ed is in the spray booth creating a frame rainbow with these juicy custom colours.

In our workshop, every step in the process informs the next, with each work passing through many hands, skills, and knowledges before the final fit-up.

Stay tuned to see the final stage of this frame journey for the upcoming exhibitions at STARKWHITE and 1301SW.

OPENING
Saturday 13 June ⭐️🪨

Skin & Stone
Talitha Kennedy & Mark Young

Come celebrate with us from 3.30 - 5.30pm at cbOne Gallery.

Working with leather and clay, Talitha Kennedy and Mark Young respond to one another's forms in a dialogue of tactile surfaces and fleshy contours that speak of an intimate approach to natural wonder.

Talitha’s soft leather sculptures and intricate ink drawings animate organic forms as skin, transforming trees and their shadows into a felt experience.

Mark’s ceramic sculptures serve as a grounded echo in stoneware and porcelain, interpreting the textures of rock pools and mysterious foreshore creatures.

Though practiced in formal craft traditions, both artists push the physical energies of their materials, imbuing the works with a deeply personal resonance that makes them come alive. The exhibited objects invite wonder, revealing meticulous detail and the intuitive touch of the makers' hands.

Congratulations SYLVIA WILSON ✨
Finalist in the 2026 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA).

We're thrilled for Sylvia! This is her first time in this prestigious award, more to come for sure! It was a real a delight to host Sylvia at cbOne Studios this January, and to present her incredible duo show with Natalie Scholtz, Between Bodies, in March.

Congratulations to all the other 2026 finalists! Look forward to celebrating with everyone up in Darwin!

Presented by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in partnership with Telstra, the Awards have been curated, shortlisted and judged by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peers, Gail Mabo and Dean Greeno alongside 2026 Guest Curator Dr Shannon Brett.
Open from Saturday 27 June 2026 until Monday 24 January 2027

Awards Ceremony | Friday 7 August 2026

Some good moments shared by Mark from his recent trip to a very green desert, running workshops with the incredible artists .

Days were spent stretching and preparing linen and cotton, testing materials, swapping knowledge, and playing with beautiful tools and surfaces - Brushes, Gouache, Stonehenge Paper and Conservation Binder Medium.



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Come in close. Get lost in the detail, colour interplay and layered textures of these paintings. Tune your senses to the Country they reveal, through the deep cultural and personal knowledge of the Central Desert, carried through generations of women.

With intricate detail, Angkuna Baker paints her Ngura (Country) the Pitjantjatjara word for the physical landscape and also meaning a place to which someone belongs. Significant elements of the desert landscape are meticulously recorded from memory, often from an aerial perspective. Courtesy of Iwantja Arts

Pauline Wangin paints tjukurpa (story) about the journey of water, the kapi tjukula (water holes), the shaping of the land, and the people who care for it around paralpii (Victory Well). This tjukurpa was passed on to her by her mother. Courtesy of Mimili Maku Arts

These two paintings together form a mesmerising diptych. Amy Yilpi paints the Maku (Witchety Grub) song line that shapes the land around Mimili. The Maku is an edible grub that lives in the roots of the Witchety Bush. Courtesy of Warakurna Artists

Aileen Napaljarri Long paints luscious fields of colour dotted with wanakiji (bush tomatoes). “This is wanakiji, bush tomatoes. Family, we go around collecting bush tucker, with crow bar. Dig ‘em up.” Courtesy of Barkly Regional Arts

Candy Nelson Nakamarra’s vivid washes of pigment illuminate the Kapi Tjukurrpa (Water Dreaming) at Kalipinypa, “The Tjukurrpa tells of an important rain making ceremony to invoke the elements. It is a powerful storm bringing on the lightning, thunderclouds and rain sending its deluge to rejuvenate the earth, filling rock holes, clay pans and creeks. It has the power to create new life and growth upon the land.” Courtesy of Papunya Tjupi Arts

Showing now in Moments on Country: Works from remote art centres until 30 May 2026.
See full catalogue on the cbOne website.