SCULPTOR Keith Wikmunea is probably out fishing by now after taking out the top prize at the prestigious $100,000 Telstra Art Award. 

When asked what he would do with the prizemoney, Mr Wikmunea didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to buy myself a boat and car and take my family back to my Country camping and fishing.” 

“I love carving and it makes me really proud that I won the award, I made my family really proud,” Wikmunea said. 

The Thu’ Apalech artist from Aurukun in far north Queensland spent months creating the sculpture of white cockatoos and galahs in a tree, which stands just under three metres tall with a carved dog at its base. 

His artwork is titled Ku’, Theewith & Kalampang: The White Cockatoo, Galah and the wandering Dog, and it represents the artist’s identity and some of his family’s totems. 

The milkwood tree, known as yuk thanchal in the artist’s first language of Wik-Mungkan, is covered with the ceremonial dot painting of Western Cape York, with the same ochre used in traditional…