Ethel was born at Oak Tree Point on the north side of Bentinck Island - or the Kaidilt
people call it 'lookati' - in 1946.
She says "I was only very small when the missionaries came and took us to Mornington Island. I was asleep when it happened and when I woke up we were on Mornington Island. I missed my parents when we were in the dormitory and we would often run away to be with them. When I was older I worked in the hospital and the mission house. Not long after that I went to Karumba on the mainland and worked on a cattle station. I moved around a few stations and on one, Esmerelda, I met my husband, George Thomas. He came back to Mornington with me and we got married there and had my eldest son there as well. We went back to Croydon on the mainland and was gone a long time. When my husband got sick and passed away I returned to Mornington in time for our people starting an outstation on Bentinck Island at Main Base or Ninjilki."
The older artist Sally Gabori showed Ethel her paintings when she first visited Bentinck again after being away for a long time.
"Now I am doing the same paintings with my sisters and aunties. It’s good painting all day to get away from the house and have a break."
Ethel is one of the seven Kaidilt artists who created the epic 6m x 2m collaborative canvas Dulka warnglid (land for all) acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in 2007 and later woven into a tapestry to hang in the Melbourne Recital Centre. NGV Aboriginal art curator Judith Ryan noted of her work in the holistic canvas that "in the lower right Ethel Thomas paints marrayak (octopus, but which also means a wasting disease that occurs if a food taboo is violated)."
Today, Ethels paintings often depict the numerous rocks that are prevalent on Bentinck Island and play a major part in the Kaidilt people's making of large rock fish traps instrumental to their successful food gathering.
Exhibitions
2012 Artists from Bentinck Island & Mornington Island, Queensland
2012 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair
2011 Korea International Art Fair
2011 Artists From Mornington Island Art 2011 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair
2010 Bentinck Island Artworks 2009 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair
2008 Painters of Bentinck Island
2008 Bandikawaanda Makuwalada Rarunginja Thaand - Return of Kaiadilt Women
2007 Bentinck Island Artists featuring Netta Loogatha
2007 Painters of Bentinck Island 2007 Painting Up Country: New Art Form The
Mornington and Bentinck Islands
2006 Big Ones Little Ones
2006 Sally Gabori & Introducing the Bentinck Island Art Gang 2006
Collections
The National Gallery of Victoria
The Merenda Collection
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane