Original Stingray The languid form and movement of the stingray as a glimpse of natural beauty has long held my attention; its appearance representing something of an epiphany. Over the years, many people that I’ve spoken to have described their own stingray story. Born in Tasmania I knew something of rays and skates but, at twenty-one, forty years ago, I found myself travelling to the top end of the country for new encounters on the beaches of Arnhem Land of the Arafura Sea.

Dry Season 1985: I had been sleeping on beaches and wading through tropical mangroves for weeks on end with a handmade spear, about to become a father. Hunting stingrays--this strange species—for food, I became transfixed. Memorable incidents and close shaves included spearing six stingrays one July morning, with one escaping my spear by fleeing between my outstretched thighs.

This breakfast bounty heralded another fate. We were interrupted by (my then partner) Helen’s labour pains culminating in the birth of our daughter Noni the same evening … a signifier that we were tumbling through another age-old passage, surging from one world into another.

Standing waist deep in the warm tropical waters, I found myself at the edge of looming chaos, gazing at all its beauty and form, drama and mystery. Poised right there, I hadn’t invented any meaning but had discovered something of it. I was explicitly told up there that artists have only one story to tell, so I assumed mine was beginning to take shape. I immediately began working with the allegorical symbolism of the stingray, often contextualised as a messenger that embodied what felt like a transcendent experience. To find myself crossing cultures was an encounter implicitly acknowledged and put into a story place for my five children, the eldest three with Helen. The culmination of these elements and events began crafting my identity. On a broader philosophical level, it represented a way of being in the world.

Michael Eather 2024

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