Kieren Karritpul + Patricia Marfurra: Old Way & New Way — 30 March to 4 May 2019

The artists invite us to share this inter-generational communication and exchange. The exhibition’s piece de resistance Patricia Marfurra’s handwoven net is traditionally used by older women to collect fish and turtles. In Kieren Karritpul’s paintings and textiles the fishnet is a reoccurring motif and each painted line echoes the woven line. As a young man, Kieren watched his mother, grandma and other older women fishing in a billabong where kids catch fish or barramundi. Today he applies this keen gaze to his artwork and hunting.

Writing the catalogue essay for Kieren Karritpul’s debut exhibition at Nomad Arts in Darwin in 2015, the astute art historian Maurice O’Riordan described the lineage of Top End artists who give form to woven objects through the two-dimensional medium of painting. O’Riordan cites Nauiyu on Daly River and nearby Peppimenarti art communities in particular (pioneered by Regina Wilson and the late Patsy Marrfura), Arnhem Land artists such as Kate Miwulku (Maningrida) and Robyn Djunginy (Ramingining) and Darwin-based artist Karen Mills’s “minimalist musings on this theme through painterly abstraction”. It is this grand tradition that Kieren Karritpul and Patricia Marfurra delight in and draw strength from. It is also now one of contemporary Australian art’s great themes.

The communal process of gathering and preparing the pandanus fibres is an opportunity for passing on ‘old stories’ and cultural knowledge. From this we infer that it is time to shift our conversations to what we can and are doing to conserve traditional botanical knowledge and water resources in the face of global climate collapse. The traditional owners are worried about the Northern Territory government’s policy of issuing long-term water licences to extract very large amounts of water from the aquifers which feed the Daly, Katherine and Roper Rivers, without a water allocation plan in place.

Kieren Karripul, Wauipan 2, 2019, acrylic on linen, 124 x 104 cm (#10015)

Kieren Karripul, Weaving, 2019, acrylic on linen, 127.5 x 89.5 cm (#10005)

Patricia Marfurra, selected weavings

Patricia Marfurra, Fishing Net – Walupan, 2019 (detail)

Patricia Marfurra, selected weavings

Old Way & New Way, Kieren Karritpul

Old Way & New Way, paintings by Kieren Karritpul

Old Way & New Way at The Cross Art Projects, 2019

About the artists

Kieren Karritpul: In 2015 Karritpul won ‘Highly Commended, Youth’ at the 32nd National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and in 2014 he won the Youth Award at the 31st NATSIAA at the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory. His artwork is in the collections of National Gallery of Australia, Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory (MAGNT), Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), Sydney and the Museum of Cultural History, Norway. Sources: Merrepen Arts, Nomad Arts, MAGNT.

Patricia Marfurra (McTaggart), AM was a founder of the Women’s Centre in 1986 (now Merrepen Arts Centre) and Merrepen Arts, Language and Culture Aboriginal Corporation (founded 1992). She holds an Advanced Diploma in Linguistics and has worked with the University of New England on the Ngan’gikurunggur and Ngen’giwumirri Dictionary (with Nicholas Reid, 2008) and collaborated with Glenn Wightman of Parks and Wildlife Commission (NT) on books of Ethnobotany from the Daly River area and the Malak Malak and Matngala Plants and Animals published by Deptment of Land Resources Management and Merrepen Arts in 2014. She was awarded an Australia Medal for her services to the community documenting language and ethnobotany in the Daly River area. Contact Merrepen Arts for copies of these publications.