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for Michael Boiyool Anning
Michael Boiyool Anning
1955
Michael Anning was given the traditional name of Boiyool by his aunt. Boiyool is the name for a piece of lawyer cane cut specifically to stir a non-lethal quantity of poison into waterholes when hunting fish as well as the name of a mythical half-human, half-eel which travelled up the rivers to significant sites in the Buluru (story time).
Anning who was born in Atherton attended school in Innisfail. Later he moved with his family to Ravenshoe where he work at a sawmill. It was here that he would gain some knowledge of the timbers that he would later use in his artworks.
Around 1990, Anning began to make traditional artefacts. He sold his early works through retail outlets in Kuranda before starting his own art practice in 1996. In 1998, Anning became the first Queenslander to win an award at the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards when his sculptural piece ‘Dulgubarra, Rainforest Dwellers’ won the Wandjuk Marika Three-Dimensional Memorial Award at the 15th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin. ‘Dulgubarra, Rainforest Dwellers’ would go on to be selected for the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory’s 20th anniversary national touring exhibition, ‘Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award: Celebrating 20 Years’ in 2004 – 2005.
Anning’s carvings and sculptures have been featured in several group exhibitions both nationally and internationally including ‘15TH National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin (1998); ‘Gatherings’, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane (2001); ‘Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2003); ‘20th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin (2003); ‘Christofle invite l’Australie’, Galerie Arts d’Australie Stéphane Jacob, Musée Bouilhet Christofle, Saint-Denis (2006); ‘Gatherings II’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2006); ‘Floating Life’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2009) and ‘Voice and Reason’, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2013).
His work is held in several collections including the National Maritime Museum, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin and Cairns Regional Gallery.
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