Period Living Cotswold Kitchen feature - May edition

Two of our beautiful Aboriginal paintings featured in the May edition of Period Living.

Please get in touch if you would like advice on Aboriginal paintings to suit the colour scheme and style for any room in your house.  As you can see the Aboriginal paintings blend well in contemporary interiors within old Cotswold cottages bringing an ancient culture into your home.

Snake Vine Dreaming, Yanjirlpiri : contemporary uses of traditional iconography

Ngalypi Jukurrpa Yanjirlpiri, Snake Vine Dreaming, by Geraldine Napangardi Granites

Our Art gallery seeks to showcase the versatility of the contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists, whose brilliant and diverse work is rooted both in the very real modern-day challenges of their culture & their rich heritage. One of these artists is Geraldine Napangardi Granites, who brings her own dynamic, modern painterly interpretation to a traditional subject matter : the Snake Vine Dreaming, or Ngalyipi Jukurrpa. 

The Snake Vine Dreaming Geraldine paints is associated with a specific country in the Australian Central Desert: Yanjirlpiri, or ‘star’ (known as Mt. Nicker), lying to the west of Yuendumu. In Aboriginal culture, Dreamings have specific ‘kirda’ (owners), and in the kirda of this Dreaming are the Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men & Napaljarri/Nungarrayi women. Geraldine is one such Napaljarri/Nungarrayi artist, the daughter of the celebrated artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites and granddaughter of Paddy Japaljarri Sims (dec) and Bessie Nakamarra Sims (Dec): two of Warlukurlangu Artists Artists Aboriginal Corporation founding artists. Born & bred in Yuendumu, she lives locally with her four children and has developed her artistry by observing her grandfather’s art and that of Judy Napangardi Watson, a Warlpiri artist at the forefront of a move towards more abstract rendering of Dreaming stories.

In Snake Vine Dreaming traditional iconography, sinuous lines represent the Ngalyipi (snake vine), and straight lines represent the witi (ceremonial poles) and karlangu (digging sticks). Geraldine's painting pools from this tradition, whilst giving us a visual representation of how intricately interwoven this plant is in the daily physical & spiritual life of its people, and the profoundly interconnected relationship of the Aboriginal people to Country.

The snake vine, or Ngalyipi [Tinospora smilacina]) is found in the trees and shrubs of sandy spinifex plains and sandhills, this green creeper has many uses in daily life and is of great ceremonial importance. The vine is made up into as a shoulder strap to carry parraja (coolamons) and ngami (water carriers), or exploited for its medicinal uses: as tourniquets, and its leaves and vines are used as bandages for wounds. The Warlpiri people sometimes chew the leaves to treat severe colds, or pound the stems into poultices to cure headaches.

The importance of Yanjirlpiri cannot be overemphasized, as the sons and grandsons of Japaljarri and Jungarrayi men are brought here from as far away as Pitjantjatjara country (to the south), and from Lajamanu (to the north) to be initiated. This witi ceremony is performed at night under the stars, during which Napaljarri and Nungarrayi women will dance but then look away and block their ears when it is time for the men dance. In men’s initiations, Ngalyipi is used to tie the witi (ceremonial poles) to the shins of the dancing initiates, and to tie yukurruyukurru (dancing boards) to dancers’ bodies.

You are always welcome to pay a visit to our Art gallery in Tetbury, Gloucestershire or to browse through its digital counterpart in the ART section of this website.

We regularly post blogs on the provenance of our artwork. If you are interested in learning more about Dreamings, do have a read of our blog The Dream before the Art.

Botany in Art

Margaret Kemarre Ross, Bush Flowers & Medicine Plants.

"We look for these plants in rocky country, we can find a litt􏰀le purple plum that we use to clean the kidneys and someti􏰁mes for flu. The yellow flowers are used for scabies, we boil them in water and wash our skin with it. The pink flowers we use for when we have sore eyes, we mix the flowers with water and the colour changes to a light green."

The Australian Aboriginal people are the one of the oldest continuous populations on earth, and their visual language is considered one of the world’s oldest Art forms, spanning over 50,000 years.  The connection to 'country' is essential. Their tribal Dreamings, creation and mapping myths, rituals and sacred topography inspire bold, beautiful abstract paintings featuring the landscape, plants and animals of Australia's central desert. The Aboriginals see no difference between themselves, the sky, the land and the animals they share it with.  All are one and the same.

Australia Day - the people, the sun & the land

Painting by Louise Napangardi Dickson (Mina Mina Dreaming) - available as a rug.

Today we celebrate Australia's cultural richness by remembering the Australian Aboriginal Flag and its symbolic colours: black for the aboriginal people of Australia; yellow for the sun – the protector & giver of life; red for the earth, the ceremonial red ochres and the Aboriginal peoples' spiritual relationship to the land.

The flag was designed in 1971 by Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas. It is now an 'Official Flag of Australia', but was originally created for the land rights movement, establishing the inherent Aboriginal right to land. 

My Country : inspired by the land

"Our art is born from the dreams of each artist and the intense colours we see in our land."

My Country references the Australian Aboriginal philosophy and creative process, whereby all of creation is in relationship, at one with the land.

In our pioneering translations of our artists' artwork into interiors ranges : wallpapers, tiles, rugs, we bring something of the character of Australia's landscapes into your homes.

The artwork we represent stands in the tradition of a sophisticated visual language, composed of layers of regular irregularities of colour, geometry, repetition and scale dynamics.

The particular provenance and symbols of this art – mapping myths, rituals and sacred topography – results in a compelling, versatile aesthetic with a most subtle compositional depth of field. It imbues spaces with wider horizons of the imagination.

We are proud to introduce you to My Country !