ngingingawula jilamara kapi purunguparri – our designs on bark

Since Raelene Kerinauia won the ‘Bark Painting’ category at the 2011 NATSIAA awards, there has been a surge of interest by younger Jilamara artists to learn how to prepare this medium. Jilamara artists have not exhibited a bark exhibition together since 1992, making this exhibition very significant and special.

The barks included here were made during the last wet season when the pliability of the bark allowed for its use. These paintings have a strong basis in ritual aspects of traditional Tiwi life. Understandably, the highly involved
conception and making, has long been superseded by the ease and accessibility of their modern equivalents, the canvas stretcher.

Bark paintings as a result, now emphasise a much more symbolic reference to old Tiwi life than they once did, shifting from the status of cultural artefact to statements of cultural identity. The organic surface of the stringy-bark serves to reinvigorate the life of the painted designs.
(Cher Breeze, Manager, Jilamara Arts & Crafts)