Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

130 131 Regina Wilson: Painted stitches Diane Moon Regina Wilson, a master weaver, is a Ngangikurrungurr woman who has lived mostly in Peppimenarti, a settlement surrounded by low coastal plains in the heart of the Daly River Aboriginal Reserve. She loops, knots, plaits and coils the fresh new growth of merrepen (sand palm), yerrgi (pandanus palm) and pinbin (vine leaves), infusing them with rich colour from freshly dug roots and corms, or flowers and berries gathered from local plants. Wilson has consistently experimented with colour, structure and texture to enliven her weaving practice. Following a series of painting workshops conducted in Peppimenarti in 2000 by Karen Brown of Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, she took a bold new direction, successfully moving from weaving to painting on canvas. Her new works were soon recognised and, in August 2003, she received the general painting award in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for Syaw (Fish net) 2003. With her quiet persistence, Wilson continues to explore painting as her primary form of expression and, by example, has inspired an important art movement in the region. A syaw is a hand-held, oval-shaped scoop net used in the waterways surrounding Peppimenarti to catch seasonally available prawns and small fish. Though the shape of the net has changed minimally over many generations, contemporary versions made for sale are invariably highly coloured, as in Kathleen Korda’s woven Walipun (Fish net) 2008. Vibrant colours are central to Wilson’s painting, and so are the colours of her country. During a visit to Peppimenarti, novelist and journalist Nicholas Rothwell was alive to these strong colours in the natural features of the flood plain and in the dyes ‘lurking in the roots and leaves of the plants and palm trees’. 1 Regina Wilson Ngangikurrungurr people NT b.1948 Syaw (Fish net) 2004 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas 200 x 210.5cm Acc. 2004.175 Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation