Marru – The Unseen Visible by Danie Mellor at QAGOMA

By Jimmy Baggins

 

A large mirror peeks out from behind a wall. At its centre, a sepia-toned photograph of an ancient abode stares back. As you approach, your reflection warps and distorts. You are the present—modern, human—bending and shifting, while the past remains fixed, unchanging, eternal.

There’s nothing else pulling you into Marru – The Unseen Visible, an exhibition by Danie Mellor. Just curiosity. And that’s exactly what the artist wants. You enter the gallery carrying ideas and conceptions that may not be your own. It’s something to consider as you pass the wall filled with images of skulls.

“I called it the wall of the living,” Danie told me over the phone before I arrived, “using images of my own skull to highlight the fact that death and life are just part of one circle.”

Personally, I saw death. A latent overlay shaped by society’s indoctrinations. Weird shapes flickered in and out of view as I passed the mirror. The warping reflections created an atmosphere where time and space bent and contorted—preparing me to question my own perspectives as I transitioned into the world beyond the visible.

It felt semi-spectral, supernatural—a clear manifestation of the exhibition’s title. Using infrared photography, Mellor conjures images that invite belief in a world layered atop, within, and beneath our own. A spiritual aura made visible to the naked eye.

This effect radiates in Yugubarra (Forever). Two men sit in an embrace, knees touching, heads bowed in an intimate moment we can only imagine. A white glow emanates from their bodies—spiritual, divine—like ancestors embracing through the skin, bone, and flesh of their sons. A kindred connection shared across cultures.

I stood transfixed, forgetting time and errands. I wanted to climb into the painting and ask what it all meant. That feeling repeated throughout the exhibition—a wonder, a curiosity, a need to understand the scenes from the past.

Three paintings side by side held me in place. Rainbow shows a quaint colonial hut with two European ‘pioneers’ at the door, while a solitary First Nations woman peers from the shadows. The Camp at Midday (Jimmy’s got a gun) plays with narrative projection—a young First Nations boy creeps toward the edge of the frame, gun in hand. What lies beyond? The Invitation flips the dynamic: a European man sits inside a traditional hut, two First Nations men outside. Conflict? Coercion? Consent? The viewer is asked to interrogate their own assumptions.

“There is no message in the paintings,” Mellor said. “They are just scenes. The idea is that the audience recognises they’ve put their own spin on things.”

Knowing to look enabled me to see beyond what I expected. To consider different narratives. To challenge the blueprinting of my own mind.

“The film is the way I try to convey this concept in its entirety—you have to watch the film.”

That film is Dark Star Waterfall, named for the idea of a black hole as a cosmic waterfall of time, light, and life. Visually meditative, it envelops you in serene calm. Two sides display opposing actions—light and dark, forward and backward—playing with the concept of unknowable truths beyond our experience.

Snippets of pioneer-era telecasts show North Queensland’s rainforests through colonial eyes. Leaves turned red through photography create a surreal, macabre fantasy land—a deathly landscape that twists fear of the unknown into acceptance of death as part of life.

A spectral skull beneath a waterfall swallows life-giving waters, transforming them into clouds. Mellor’s vision comes into undeniable focus.

This exhibition is a departure from gallery expectations—and gloriously so. It challenges binary definitions and invites you to determine your own view of what exists before you. An invitation Danie Mellor fully achieves in Marru – The Unseen Visible.