Australia Day Ambassador
Digby Moran
Ambassador for Mid-Western Regional Council
Digby Moran has had an incredible life to date. He was born and brought up on Cabbage Tree Island in the Richmond River. It was there that he listened to stories from his Grandfather, Father, Mother, Uncle and Elders. He would go fishing after School and catch prawns by dragging a hessian bag through the River and enjoyed living with the close community on Cabbage Tree Island. He would row a dingy down the River to get groceries or to pick up his brother from the mainland to take him back to the Island after a day's work.
At sixteen Digby left Cabbage Tree to work on local cane fields, he would cut cane by hand in the Ballina region. After a few years Digby joined the travelling Jimmy Sharman Boxing Troupe. He travelled up to the northern parts of Australia and saw a great deal of this vast country.
Digby is a renowned artist and many of his artworks reflect Digby’s fondness for his early life. “You had to make your own fun back then. We would row around the island, spear eels, fish for mullet and flathead. My mother would collect Christmas bells to decorate the table. They are native to my country and I use them as symbols of my respect for my land and my mother.” Digby chuckles over the irony that today they are protected and shouldn’t be picked.
His "number one fan" when he started painting was his mother. Digby and his mother were very close and she would often visit Digby in the evening when he was painting. You can see Digby's, his Mother's and grandkids handprints with Justin Crisp (the maker of the cabinet) and his family's handprints on the bottom of the cabinet. These handprints are very special to Digby as his mother has since passed away.
Digby enjoys enormous respect throughout the Northern Rivers region from artists and the wider community. His varied life has taken him from a mission on Cabbage Tree Island all the way to exhibiting his paintings at Hamlen in Germany.
His love for his Bundjalung heritage and country are inspiration for his work. Water, especially the ocean, is a common theme.
“Water is a big part of all Bundjalung dreaming,” Digby explains.
“And I have always been a saltwater man.”
His success includes many shows, including the 2000 Peoples Choice Award at the National Aboriginal and Islander Telstra Art Award at the Northern Territory Art Gallery, a solo show last year at the Museum Hamlen, the Berlin Aboriginal Art Gallery 2001 and 2002, and the New Media Art Gallery in Vienna, Austria in 2003.
No matter how far his art takes him round the world, Digby will always be connected to his own ‘energy of the earth’. “I love walking around the coast and Evans Head, just to feel the energy of the place.”
