Tarryn Love

Tarryn Love is a proud Gunditjmara Keerray Woorroong woman from south-west Victoria and has grown up on Wadawurrung Country. Tarryn’s practice exists in the space of creative cultural expression.

She is a koorroyarr, teenyeen ngapang, tyeentyeeyt ngapangyarr and wanoong ngeerrang - granddaughter, youngest daughter, youngest sister and proud Aunty. Tarryn creates under the collective of Koorroyarr which means ‘grandaughter’ in her Mother Tongue, honouring her positionality as a Gunditjmara woman. Koorroyarr represents that the sustainability of her cultural practice is in the sharing of knowledge and pays respect to her family and Ancestors, past and living. Tarryn’s work represents the distinctiveness of Gunditjmara ways of Knowing, Being and Doing that is not one way but constantly happening and changing.

Tarryn Love’s Geelong Arts Centre artwork

Wrapping the walls and panels of The Story House theatre at Geelong Arts Centre, proud Gunditjmara Keerray Woorroong artist Tarryn Love’s work centres on yoowak (the night), encompassing three thematic layers: kakatheereeng, meenkeel, wootyook (the stars), tanteen tyamoorn (the Milky Way), and alam meen (Ancestors wrapped in their Possum Skin Cloaks).

Tarryn created the work digitally on an iPad, and her line work represents the distinctiveness of Gunditjmara ways of Knowing, Being and Doing. It shows the movement of time as non-linear and cyclical, and of the connection between people, places and Country. In Tarryn's culture, Possum Skin Cloaks are very important. They are a survival tool, a marker of identity and holder of stories. For Tarryn they are part of her belonging, cultural connectedness and healing.

The artwork has been translated onto the walls on perforated wood panels, with varying depth of each perforation creating a sense of light and dark, and the illusion of movement.

Tarryn hopes that young First Nations people visiting The Story House feel a sense of belonging, and that this space has been created for them, now and long into the future.

Tarryn’s work spans approximately 500 custom made panels that cover approximately 1600sqm of space. Specialised equipment was used to translate the design layouts onto plywood panels by drilling individual perforations that both form the artwork and aid theatre acoustics. The average machine time for each panel is approximately 4 hours, equating to a total of almost 2000 hours of machine time for the full work. The panel installation took in the order of 12 weeks to complete, with a specialised crew of 10 installers.