ed./45Kerr Kerr by Dennis Nona is a medicinal plant used to heal sick babies. The juice from ginger plants, collected from hill tops on Badu Island, is squeezed into a shell (Alup). The healing ointment is applied to babies’ skin who are weak from a cold or who suffer from a tropical skin disease (Zurr), which is common in September and October. This treatment was practiced a long time ago in the Western Torres Strait islands and was passed down to the artist by elder James Eseli. If it is applied once a day for several days, the baby will be cured.The artist says that his ancestors visit him in his dreams and inspire him to take a new technical approach to his work. In this work the application of the treatment and the baby’s back are compressed into one image. The swirling patterns (Minnar) at the bottom represent the continued rubbing action, while the diamond patterning in the top half marks the disease on the babies skin. The middle shows the activity of the disease, moving under the skin.