Yira Designs / Visual Arts
Art, material
and Country.
Original work by Phil Sillifant, a Wadandi Pibblemen Nyoongar artist working across painting, sculpture, public art, original digital design, photography, film and footage.
Selected commissions
Sun Path on Wilyabrup Country — commissioned painting →
Yagan Mia | Djinanginy — City of Melville commissioned photography →
Painting / City of Melville Indigenous Art Collection
Djilba
Acrylic on canvas
Acquired by the City of Melville in 2024. Included in the 2025 Urban Landscapes | Cultural Corridors exhibition at Wireless Hill Museum.
In this work, I wanted to capture the essence of the Noongar season of Djilba (August - September). The intricate patterns and colours reflect the awakening of nature as plants and boodja barna (animals) bloom with life. Each dot signifies the ongoing connection our people hold to boodja (land), keip (waterways) and wardan (seas). I invite viewers to immerse themselves in the beauty of Djilba, a celebration of resilience, renewal, and the reciprocal bond we all maintain with our natural environment.
Sculptural practice
Timber. Copper. Fire. Australian opal.
Karla Boya Womra — Fire Rock Shield
Reclaimed jarrah, pyrography, opal inlay and epoxy resin
43 × 12.5 × 8 cm · 2025
Burnt rings score jarrah like time; opal inlays mark the moments we carry. Together they form a shield—memory as protection, identity affirmed. Fire inscribes, stone remembers, wood endures. From sparks to scars, these keystones become our armour, steadying who we are.
Winner, First Nations Award — City of Melville Art Awards, 2025.
Acquired by the City of Melville.
Meeka Barrang, Boodjar Barrang — Carrying Moon, Carrying Country
Salvaged jarrah yandi with Australian opal inlay, pyrography, epoxy resin and honey wax
31 H × 12 W × 3 D cm · 2026
Meeka Barrang, Boodjar Barrang — Carrying Moon, Carrying Country is a yandi formed from salvaged jarrah, carrying opal moon phases through a burnt path of time. Held within fire-darkened timber, the stones speak of renewal, eclipse, return and continuing obligation. Like the moon’s cycle, caring for Country is not finished; Noongar and wadjella communities continue this journey, carrying memory, respect and responsibility forward together.
Finalist — City of Bayswater Community Art Awards, 2026.
Industrial fingerprints: Noonan (yours) or Nganyany (mine)
Recycled copper wire with patina
Exhibited — City of Melville Art Awards, 2023
The polarised views of mining inspired my work. As a Noongar man, I used recycled copper wire to reduce my environmental impact. However, the patina is my fingerprint because I recognise that we are all born consumers of at least some resources. No one is infallible. I wanted observers to consider the economic and natural environment trade-offs. Mining? Manufacturers? Consumers? We all leave behind marks of what was once here; these fingerprints are both noonan (yours) and nganyany (mine).
Boorna Wangkiny — Message Stick
Timber, pyrography, Australian opal inlay and honey-wax finish
Multiple views of a single sculptural work show how pyrographic mark-making and inset opal continue around the object. The timber is finished with honey wax, allowing its natural surface and grain to remain part of the work.
Australian opal — lapidary practice
I cut and polish Australian opal for use within my sculptural practice and am a member of the WA Lapidary and Rock Hunting Club. This hands-on material practice supports the opal inlay used across my timber artworks.
Painting & mixed media
Djilba Midjal — Djilba Rains
Acrylic on canvas
45.5 H × 62 W × 2.5 D cm · 2026
Djilba Midjal (Djilba Rains) celebrates the transformation of Noongar boodja as Djilba rain moves across Country. I built the work through dense, layered dot painting, allowing colour, pattern and movement to accumulate like life responding to water. Over this vibrant ground, sweeping pale rain lines travel, cross and gather, creating a rhythm between abundance and weather. The brightness beneath the rain reflects renewal: Country is not muted by the season, but awakened through it. I want viewers to feel the renewed energy, beauty and interconnectedness of Djilba, and to look more closely at the changing patterns of Country around them.
Painting and mixed-media works sit alongside sculptural experiments with timber, pyrography and opal. Selected work includes Djilba Midjal — Djilba Rains, a 2026 City of Canning Art Awards finalist.
Artwork enquiries →Digital & surface design
Original designs across formats.
Digital illustration, repeat patterns and original motifs developed for surfaces, textiles and creative commissions. Work includes Kambarang designs from the Six Noongar Seasons series and Product of Noongar Boodja.
Discuss a design commission →For licensing enquiries, include the intended application, duration and scope of use.
Enquire about design licensing →Original identity & merchandise
Product of Noongar Boodja
Conceived and designed as an original visual identity grounded in connection to Country, Product of Noongar Boodja was developed for apparel and merchandise and launched publicly at Melville Open Studios in 2025. A deliberately limited first run of approximately 15–20 printed T-shirts sold out during the event.
The project brings together original design, graphic simplification, production and the translation of artwork into a wearable form.
Digital concepts & visual storytelling
The Impressions We Leave — and Leave With
Six connected motifs exploring identity, gathering, exchange, momentum, support and Country.
Australian Open 2028 First Nations Digital Artist EOI / Original concept series, 2026.
The Mark We Carry
A coloured fingerprint holds the upper-body form of a tennis player serving. Its coloured ridges represent different pathways, backgrounds and perspectives, bringing individual identity into a shared experience through the game.
Gathering on Court
Four distinct player forms gather within a shared court while coloured pathways move around and between them. Their colours remain distinct: different journeys meet through a common game without losing individual identity.
Exchange
Coloured pathways sit inside a fluorescent tennis ball. The ball is given, received and returned, carrying a story of action and response, challenge and opportunity, and what passes between people through play.
Momentum
Translucent trajectories cross, bend, rebound and change direction. Rally, bounce and return become a visual language of adaptation, persistence and the continuing capacity to respond and keep moving.
The Network
Brightly coloured roots intertwine and resolve into the strings of an implied tennis racquet. They represent the families, coaches, communities, volunteers, officials and supporters whose contributions hold the visible game together.
Held by Country
The fingerprint returns as an enduring mark held in timber. A blue-green Birrarung pathway and a subtle Rod Laver Arena form locate this concept within Melbourne Park. The proposed site-specific expression would be refined with appropriate Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung cultural guidance.
From motif to place, product and physical form
Application studies explore how the connected visual language could move across venue graphics, apparel, merchandise and a physical artwork. These are proposal visualisations.
Selected paintings / artwork details
Country, family and living knowledge.
Ngari Ngardanginy — Salmon Hunt
Acrylic on stretched canvas | 2025
79 H × 79 W × 5 D cm, including frame
Exhibited — City of Belmont Art Awards, 2026
Ngari Ngardanginy — Salmon Hunt celebrates coastal tradition, seasonal movement and the shared knowledge carried through salmon hunting. The layered dot work honours the ocean as a living place of food, story and connection, and the knowledge passed from old people to young people through gathering, hunting and teaching.
Boodja Koort Wungening — Country Heals Hearts
Acrylic on stretched canvas
96 H × 96 W × 4 D cm · 2026
Painting continues around the sides. Intentionally unframed.
Selected for the City of Melville Art Awards, 2026.
Boodja Koort Wungening honours Country as healer, teacher and keeper of memory. Waterways flow as pathways through Nyoongar Boodja, linking mob to seasonal knowledge and medicinal plants, while gum leaves evoke healing held in Country. The work invites us to slow down, look deeply, observe and reflect on the life around us. Through vibrant acrylic dot work, it speaks to how time on Boodja can quiet trauma, ground us and restore the koort through connection and renewal.
Koort Boodja — Heart Land
Acrylic on stretched canvas
76.5 × 56 × 2.5 cm
Created 19 July 2025 · Private collection
This painting celebrates the connection between spirit and Country through the six Noongar seasons and their influence on yandjet (bulrush) wetlands. An intricate yellow circle represents the Koort—the beating heart sustaining life within Country. Layered colours and patterns carry cycles of giving, taking, teaching and healing.
Tjuitgellong — Place of the Long Neck Turtle
Acrylic on canvas
70 × 50 × 2 cm
Created 15 March 2026 · Sold / private collection
Connected to Lake Seppings near Albany, this painting celebrates family, cultural tradition and connection to Country. A central white circle represents the Booyi—the Southwestern snake-necked turtle—carrying patience and kadadjiny (knowledge). References to wetland birdlife bring together a story of gathering, nourishment, movement and memory.
Ngaangk, Maam-yok, Djook, Ngowali — Mum, Aunties, Sister, Nieces
Acrylic on canvas
100 × 100 cm
Created 15 April 2026 · Sold / private collection
A celebration of family, cultural tradition and connection to Country. This work honours my mother, Colleen Hill, who first taught me to paint; my Aunties, Sandra Hill and Gail Airey; and my sister and nieces. Colour, pattern and gathering carry the knowledge and relationships that tie generations together.
Ngaangk Bidi Wilyabrup Boodja — Sun Path on Wilyabrup Country
Acrylic on canvas
155 × 96 cm
Created 2 July 2026
Commissioned painting
This commissioned painting follows the light from maambakoort—the coast and sea—across bright boodja to the vines, buildings and gathering places of Moss Wood Winery. Coastline, creek-lines, vineyards and old tracks are held in one living story. The djer-djer (blue wren) offers a flash of life and colour within this connected landscape of sun, water, gathering and belonging.
Photography & visual storytelling
Looking closely at Country.
Wildlife, landscape, cultural practice and place-based documentation through photography and film. The City of Melville commissioned Phil to photograph and document Yagan Mia | Djinanginy at Wireless Hill from May to September 2026, capturing Country, cultural practice, wildlife and seasonal detail.
Photographs from the project were exhibited at Yagan Mia, Wireless Hill Museum.
Movement Study — Grand Central Terminal
A fish-eye, long-exposure study of collective movement through shared space, exploring atmosphere, rhythm and the traces people leave within a place.
Live Sport — Hobart Hurricanes
Fast-action sports photography capturing a decisive instant within play. Movement, timing and observation connect this work with my wider photographic and digital practice.
Film & footage
Moving-image storytelling.
Location and project footage, cultural documentation and moving-image storytelling. Capture, editing, permissions, usage and delivery are scoped to your brief.
Public art
Artwork connected to place.
Six Noongar Seasons
Attadale Primary School / commissioned artwork in development, 2026.
Six timber poles and original digital designs connect the seasons with an outdoor school setting, student engagement and cultural learning.
Between Boodja and Sky
Fremantle Biennale NIGHT RISE / concept submission, 2026.
A Seven Sisters-inspired sculptural steel arch conceived to frame the night sky above Lake Ninan. The early visualisation shows six apertures; the proposal envisages seven. This is a proposal.
Selected recognition
Exhibitions, awards & acquisitions.
2025 / Award & acquisition
First Nations Award, City of Melville Art Awards — Karla Boya Womra, acquired by the City.
2026 / Finalist selections
City of Melville, City of Belmont, City of Canning and City of Bayswater Art Awards.
Artist statement
Material, memory and connection.
My practice moves between painting, sculpture, digital design and photography. I am drawn to the ways marks, patterns and materials can hold connections to Country. In timber, I work with grain, burnt linework and the shifting light of Australian opal. In painting and design, colour and repeated forms explore seasonal change and the relationships between land, waterways, seas and living things.
Photography offers another way of looking closely: at wildlife, cultural practice and the details of place. Across these forms, I seek to create work that invites attention, connection and an ongoing relationship with the natural environment.
Phil Sillifant / Wadandi Pibblemen Nyoongar artist
Artist CV & collections
Selected professional history.
Public collections: City of Melville — Karla Boya Womra — Fire Rock Shield; City of Melville Indigenous Art Collection — Djilba.
2025: First Nations Award, City of Melville Art Awards — Karla Boya Womra — Fire Rock Shield.
2026: finalist selections at City of Melville, City of Belmont, City of Canning (Djilba Midjal) and City of Bayswater (Meeka Barrang, Boodjar Barrang).
Selected commissioned work: City of Melville, Yagan Mia | Djinanginy, 2026; Attadale Primary School, Six Noongar Seasons, commissioned artwork in development, 2026.
Download Visual Arts & Creative Commissions Capability Statement (PDF, 23 pages) ↓
Commissions & collaborations
From the first conversation to delivery.
1. Share the brief
Describe the purpose, location, audience, preferred medium, indicative budget and timeframe. For existing work, include the artwork title in your enquiry.
2. Agree the scope
Discuss the creative direction, practical requirements, deliverables and milestones. Commission timing is agreed around the scale, materials and production requirements.
3. Develop & deliver
Concept development, agreed review stages, production and delivery follow the project scope. Public-art projects may include coordination with fabrication or installation partners.
4. Agree use & attribution
Confirm artist credit, reproduction or licensing requirements and permitted applications within the agreement. Framing, delivery and installation are discussed where relevant.
Enquire about original work, commissioned sculpture and painting, public art, photography, film, digital design and creative partnerships. Availability and project-specific details are confirmed with Phil.
Make room for original work.
Enquiries for sculpture, painting, public art, photography, corporate commissions and creative collaboration.
Discuss a commission →