Better World Aboriginal Art Digital Print Cotton Teatowel - Family & Country

Better World Aboriginal Art Digital Print Cotton Teatowel - Family & Country by Damien & Yilpi Marks

• Size:  63cm x 45cm
• Material: 100% cotton
• Digitial Print designs
• designed in Australia by Royalty Paid Aboriginal Artist

Cross Cultural Project -
The printing is a hand process that traditional handicraft workers can adopt, already having a similar skills set. Handicrafts in general are struggling to survive, pushed aside by industrial mass production. People are being displaced from their home villages due to lack of income. Screen printing is both productive and a clean industry that can be practised on a small scale. We use water based inks. The designs belong to Aboriginal artists, who receive generous royalties on every purchase made.

About the Design
This is a teaching painting, describing a dry season in Damien's homeland, Mount Liebig, in the Northern Territory. It illustrates aspects of landscape and culture that was told to Damien by his great-grandparents. Women sit with children collecting bush potatoes (the red shapes at the top of the painting) and are preparing for inma (ceremony). One man, wati, sits down with his waru (spear). Controlled burnings are taking place as the spinifex is dry, and this means good fruits can grow. The small star-like symbols represent women’s body paint that the women paint on each other for inma. A dry creekbed runs through the painting (in red and white), and there are cracks in the claypans, dried rockholes (tjukula), and sandhills (tali).