'My Country' by Rosie Tarku King, 100% Silk Satin Scarf - Represented by One of Twelve (m/oft006)

100% silk satin scarf, featuring work by Mangkaja artist Rosie Tarku King.

MATERIALS: 100% Silk Satin, double sided printing with hand rolled edges.

DIMENSIONS: 108 x 108 cm

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Mangkaja Arts is a thriving, Aboriginal-owned and governed art centre based in the township of Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Established in 1981, the art centre evolved from modest beginnings as an arm of Karrayili Adult Education Centre, a community initiative set up for local people who wanted to learn English. The art centre takes its name from the Walmajarri word ‘mangkaja’ – a  wet weather shelter traditionally made from spinifex erected by the Walmajarri people of the Great Sandy Desert prior to settler contact. Today, Mangkaja Arts embodies that term, providing a haven for artists to meet, talk and paint both important esoteric and personal stories.

Rosie Tarku King was born at Payinjarra, a jumu (soakage) in the Great Sandy Desert, c. 1934. Rosie spent her childhood in the bush, walking across her Country, and hunting wirlka (sand goanna) and pussycat for food. Rosie began painting in the early 2000s, and her works are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of WA and the National Museum of Australia. Characterised by her dynamic use of colour and negative space, and frenetic symbolism, her work vividly brings to life the jila (living waterhole), jili (sandhills) and jumu (soakage) of her desert homelands.

This item is available in Store at Midland Junction Arts Centre.

Images and text courtesy of One of Twelve.