YURIYAL ERIC BRIDGEMAN

We are proud to present Yuriyal Bridgeman’s solo exhibition titled, Uma. Bridgeman’s work, encompassing painting, photography, and new media, explores the sociocultural fabric of his heritage from the Yuri Alaiku clan in South Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. In the Yuri language, ‘Uma’ denotes a kiss, characterised by oral and nasal sounds as muscles contract, pucker, and release. The exhibition’s titular work is a durational video piece featuring audio recorded with members of his Yuri tribespeople in Simbu Province. In this piece, the artist integrates his performative painting practice with the sounds of ‘konare,’ a traditional courting ceremony known as ‘turning of the head.‘Over the past decade, Yuriyal Bridgeman has deeply engaged with the Kuman, the tribal shield of his Yuri people and the broader Highlands region, also known as the Waghi Shield. His ‘Shield Paintings’ extend this traditional men’s practice, enriched by cultural knowledge shared by his contemporaries and elders, and introduce elements of modern geometric and minimalist painting.In this exhibition, Bridgeman views the shield as an extension of the body, ripe fruit as a metaphor for flesh, and the bird as a symbol of visitation, guardianship, and revelation. This body of work marks his first significant foray into figurative painting, acknowledging figures of poetic and real-life significance, including the tradie, love birds, and death. Yuriyal’s self-portraits draw on the sporting field, with facial markings derived from one of his personal shield designs, ‘Are’ (The Sun). Painting, for Bridgeman, is a full-bodied dance, with the canvas serving as a space to leave traces—Are Baa Uma, where the Sun kisses the Moon.Yuriyal Bridgeman lives and works between Brisbane, Queensland, and the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. He has a Bachelor of Photography from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane (2010). Recent significant solo exhibitions and commissions include A Barrow, A Singing commissioned and exhibited at Performance Space, Sydney and HOTA, Home of the Arts, Gold Coast in 2022. This same year Bridgeman exhibited Yal at Linden Art Museum in Melbourne as part of PHOTO2022. In 2019 his work was included in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cockatoo Island, with Haus Yuriyal (2019); The National: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney (2019) and the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2015–2016), The Fight, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (2017) and Haus Man, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2012).