Project Gallery

Pwoja Pukumani body paint design

This tapestry is the second to be funded through an initiatvie of the Tapestry Foundation of Australia to place Australian-designed and made tapestries in selected overseas embassies. Under this program, tapestries are loaned from the Tapestry Foundation of Australia's permanent collection to an embassy and may on occasion be exchanged between embassies.

The Workshop felt it appropriate to continue to use designs by Australian Indigenous artists for the embassy collection, and with this in minde, sent work by three artistst for consideration by the Ambassador to Beijing. The Ambassador selected Pwoja Pukumani Body Paint Design by Pedro Wonaeamirri.

The Artist

Pedro Wonaeamirri was born in 1974 on Melville Island, the larger of the Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin in the Northern Territory. His home is the remote community of Milikapiti (Snake Bay), a picturesque place on Melville Island. It is here that Pedro works and lives a life steeped in Tiwi traditions, including fishing and hunting for bush tucker.

Pedro Wonaeamirri's painting are based on pwoja body painting and his carved Pukumani Poles are his link to the tradition and to the future of the Tiwi people. Tiwi art is derived from ceremonial body paiting and the ornate decoration applied to Pukumani funerary poles, Yimawilini bark basekets, and assoicated ritural objects made from the Pukumani ceremony. Traditionally, the decease Tiwi people are buried on the day they pass away, but the Pukumani ceremonies are performed six months to several years after death.

Pedro's talents were recognised and nurtured from the beginning of the Jilamara Arts and Craft centre in the Tiwi Islands and at age seventee, Pedro's work was included in a group exhibition in 1991 at Alcaston Gallery. Now his art has been exhibited and acquired all over Australia and also overseas.

Over the years Pedro has developed his own style, making his work stand out from other Tiwi contemporaries. Unusually, he has chosen to use a traditional wooden comb, giving his paintings a stylized look, whilst continually experimenting with combinations of blocks of ochre backtround and intricate patter. Pedro is also well known for his Pukumani pole carvings. He says much of his inspiration comes from childhood memories of watching the elders papaint and carve the designs.

This Tapestry

The tapestry is hanging in the dining room of the Australian Embassy in Beijing. To translate the painting into tapestry, various decisions have been made about thickness and thinness of lines. Some lines which have been made by the artist with a body comb have a quality of irregularity which has been possible to achieve in the weavint. The geometry of the the design and the limited colour palette make this work very suitable for translation into tapestry. The ochres in particular have a richness and depth in wool and cotton.

Pedro Wonaeamirri visited the Workshop at the beginning of the project and discussed with the weavers his general intentions with his work and looked at the samples which had been woven. He was pleased with the look and feel of the weaving and felt it to be in keeping with his work.