15/05/2026
William Mora Galleries is delighted to honour the work of the late Bardi Elder Roy Wiggan (1930–2015), from north of Broome on the Dampier Peninsula. A highly influential Indigenous artist, Roy Wiggan’s practice was deeply grounded in the cultural traditions of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. His work is intrinsically connected to Ilma: ceremonial objects and story systems that map the sea, Country, ancestral knowledge, and lived experience through form, pattern, and material.
Buru – An Exhibition of the Late, Great Roy Wiggan’s Ilma brings together a selection of works from 2002–2005. Buru is the Bardi term for a patrilineal estate or Country — a spiritually significant and culturally held territory carrying religious, ecological, and ancestral importance. Through bold sculptural compositions, Roy Wiggan translated these narratives into forms that evoke the movement of water, wind, and tide, reflecting both the power and fragility of the environment.
Presented in collaboration with Short Street Gallery, this exhibition positions Roy Wiggan’s practice as both cultural knowledge and contemporary artistic expression, held within a lineage of Bardi storytelling and making. Roy entrusted his vast and intimate cultural knowledge to Emily Rohr and Short Street Gallery, leaving behind Ilma that are not only cultural objects, but enduring testaments to his extraordinary talent.
Short Street Gallery and William Mora Galleries first exhibited Roy Wiggan’s work in 2002, marking the beginning of the two galleries’ longstanding collaboration.
Please join us for the opening on Thursday 4 June, 6–8 pm, to be opened by Emily Rohr, Founder and Director of Short Street Gallery.
For further information or to request a catalogue, please email us.
We look forward to seeing you ❤️
Anna
