Ray Thomas: Yeerung’s Journey

Experience the quiet power of art as both witness and healing in Yeerung’s Journey, a major solo exhibition of paintings, carvings and personal belongings by Brabrawooloong Gunnai artist, Ray Thomas.

Spanning more than forty years, Yeerung’s Journey offers insight into Ray’s evolution as both an artist and a cultural leader. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and, more recently, large-scale murals, Ray has developed a distinctive and powerful visual language grounded in family, Country, memory and lived experience.

His work speaks to both personal and collective histories, expressing resilience, cultural continuity and healing.

The exhibition takes its name from Gunnai lore, where Yeerung, the emu wren, is the totem carried by men. More than a name, Yeerung embodies identity, belonging and responsibility, and is larger than the self, binding Gunnai men within a living knowledge system where story, land, identity and lore are inseparable.