Exhibition

Ngarrindjeri Nukkan: Threads of Connection

Jackie Saunders

About the exhibition

Ngarrindjeri Nukkan: Threads of Connection is a deeply personal and culturally grounded exhibition by Aboriginal artist Jackie Saunders. This new body of work explores themes of renewal, resilience, and reconnection to land and spirit, expressed through Jackie’s distinctive painting style and bold use of colour, line, and layered symbolism. As a proud Ngarrindjeri woman living with disability, Jackie brings a powerful and unique perspective to her art, weaving together personal stories with ancestral memory and the strength of cultural continuity.

Created during her Nexus Arts residency on Kaurna Yarta, the works honour both her own heritage and her respectful relationship to place and community. A vital part of this process was Jackie’s collaboration with a First Nations artist mentor, whose cultural and creative guidance provided a safe space for reflection, growth, and deeper connection to her practice. This mentorship strengthened the integrity of the work and affirmed the importance of intergenerational knowledge-sharing within the arts.

This solo exhibition is the culmination of a 3 month studio residency at Nexus Arts, as part of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival 2025.

24th July 2025 – 5th September 2025


Hero Image: Connection to Country, 2025. Acrylic on Canvas. 139 x 185cm. Credit Sam Roberts

Power of Place - Audio Description by Monique McLellan

Catalogue essay

Ngarrindjeri Nukkan: Threads of Connection

An essay for Jackie Saunders at Nexus Arts (scroll down for audio recording)

There are colours that speak louder than words.

The pink sunrise kissing the sand dunes, to the sunset reds that turn swamp green lakes to fire. Jackie Saunders’s works are filled with colours, country and memories. Jackie teaches us about the rhythm of colours.  

From two Countries — the river’s mouth where salt water and fresh mix, her Ngarrindjeri mother and the vast saltbush country of her father from Ceduna, west coast way. With each painting stroke, Jackie connects to her countries, threading herself together, no halves, just one whole person. Here are the maps of her Ngarrindjeri Ruwe, both Jackie and her family are there, amongst the stories and bodies of water. They are country and country is them. This is a reconnection — not only to where she comes from, but to who she is becoming. 

Each canvas holds a story, all real and remembered. Some for celebration, some for healing, all blazing with love. Jackie paints through pain and into possibility and knowing, her brush is her medicine, her therapy. There are stories — shared, inherited, created — some whispered through kin like Vida Sumner and Cedric Varcoe, some shared through whale dreaming, and others lived through the queer spirit that dances through Jackies practice.  

To experience Jackie’s work is to feel the embrace of her world — a world shaped by resilience, lit by joy, and sharpened by the clarity of the Queer Aboriginal spirit. This is Jackies way of giving back, a gesture of love in a world that hasnt always been kind. It’s also her way of healing, healing for herself, her people and even for you.  

You feel it — that surge, that power, that unshakable sense that she is not alone in these colours. Her family is here. Her ancestors are here. As an artist, Jackie is the embodiment of her living culture, a culture thread that entrenches itself through countless generations. Nothing can compare to this intergenerational echo. And through it all, she remains, strong, bright and unbroken. Jackie has made the work, now is time to pay the respect and listen up. 

Ngarrindjeri Nukkan: these are the threads of connection. 

This is more than art 

this is culture 

this strength 

this is life

Dominic Guerrera 

Listen to an audio recording of the essay below. Read by Monique McLellan.

Read full essay +

Meet the artists & curators

Ngarrindjeri Wirangu artist Jackie Saunders is an emerging Indigenous artist whose work is deeply rooted in her heritage and lived experiences as a person with disability. Drawing from the rich traditions of her ancestors, she creates compelling visual narratives that celebrate Indigenous culture while also addressing themes of identity, resilience, and the intersectionality of disability. 

She was exhibited in ACE Open’s 2020 exhibition ‘If the Future is to be Worth Anything: 2020 South Australian Artist Survey’. In the same year, she won the Dawn Slade-Faull Award, which enabled her to present her debut solo exhibition, ‘Salt & Sand’. Her work was featured in Tarnanthi 2021, with a follow up solo show in Tarnanthi 2023. In 2022, she collaborated with Laura Wills on the exhibition ‘Mineral Lines’ at the South Australian Museum. In 2024, her piece Desert Sundown (Alice Springs) was acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia. Jackie will take part in a Nexus Studio Residency for SALA 2025, which includes a mentorship with an established artist.   

Image courtesy of Tutti Arts. Image credit: Sam Roberts

Dominic Guerrera (he/him) is a Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna and Italian person. Dominic is a poet, podcaster and is currently undertaking a Masters in Gender Studies at Flinders University.

In 2020 Dominic curated his first art exhibition circles to us, which featured at Nexus Arts and in 2021 was the guest curator of the Context Writers Festival with Writers SA.

Dominic’s writing has featured in Granta Magazine, Artlink Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review and in 2021 was the winner of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize.