CAIRNS.- Carved and scarred by fire: Dylan Sarra’s powerful homage to resistance and Country to debut at CIAF 2025.

Taribelang and Gooreng Gooreng (Bundaberg region) artist Dylan Sarra will be among the standout exhibitors at this year’s Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF), unveiling a profoundly moving new body of sculptural work presented by Mitchell Fine Art from 11–13 July 2025.

A multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans printmaking, sculpture, and installation, Sarra draws from deep cultural memory and truth-telling to challenge colonial narratives and revive stories long buried.

At the heart of Sarra’s CIAF 2025 presentation are a series of Gulmari shields - scorched and inscribed with meaning alongside handcrafted glass and stone-tipped spears. Each carved shield and spear carry memory and an ongoing reckoning with truth: How it was hidden, how it survived, and how it must now be seen.

Marked with a gradual burn that spreads and overtakes the surfaces, the Gulmari shields speak to violent acts of cultural erasure when truth was often burnt and buried to protect colonial interests. The surfaces are marked and struck with weaponry and lead balls of the same size as the original colonial bullets.

The collection of glass-tipped spears references the Queensland Native Police, which were established to carry out the expansion of colonial settlement across the state in the late 1800s. They draw from historical accounts of material improvisation by Aboriginal troopers and speak to invasion, violence, and cultural erasure.

The stone-tipped spears, crafted with hand-knapped jasper stone and adorned with emu feathers, draw from traditional practices while incorporating contemporary airbrushed patterns.

“These spears assert presence and survival. They are not weapons of conquest but markers of belonging,” said Sarra.

“My work is about connecting to ancestral voices still embedded in place. By carving and creating, I am continuing a legacy interrupted by colonisation—one that carries strength, knowledge, and survival. This is not the whole story. Instead, it is the beginning.”

A four-time Telstra NATSIAA finalist, Sarra’s work is held in significant national collections including the Queensland Museum and Griffith University Art Museum.

In 2024, he was named the inaugural First Nations Fellow at the Queensland Museum, where he continued his research into the Burnett River petroglyphs and ancestral knowledge systems.

The collection will be presented in Tank 3 as part of Mitchell Fine Art’s exhibition at CIAF 2025, from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 July.