This textile has a densely-packed, non-repeating pattern of organic forms. Black background with preodminantly yellow thread with orange shade, the lines and shapes comprise stylized plants, animals, insects, and organisms. A prominent shape is a long, fern-like plant with slender yellow stem and thin, densely packed orange and yellow lines extending around. Cilia-like, they are placed randomly around the composition, with lizards, birds, flying insects, and other plants in-between.

There are 2 other images of this object. See our image rights statement.

See more objects with the tag art, animals, wall hanging, snakes, organic form, insects, art exhibition, lizards, centipedes, dreams.

See more objects with the color darkslategrey darkkhaki sienna grey darkolivegreen or see all the colors for this object.

Object Timeline

1970	We photographed this object. We photographed this object.
1989	Work on this object began.
1992	We acquired this object.
2015	We photographed this object. This was an Object of the Day.
2024	You found it!

Textile, Tharrakarre

This is a Textile. It is dated 1989 and we acquired it in 1992. Its medium is silk and its technique is wax-resist dyed (batik) on plain weave. It is a part of the Textiles department.

The Utopia Women’s Batik group was formed in 1977 to empower the women of the Utopia Aboriginal Freehold Property to generate income from creative work. Batik, or wax-resist dyeing, is not indigenous to Australia, but among the many crafts the women were exposed to, batik was the most popular technique. Through the 1980s the group, consisting of dozens of artists, produced work for sale through the CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association), and created work for a series of exhibitions that traveled internationally.

Judith Kngwarreye’s Tharrakarre combines bush plants, reptiles and insects in a dynamic composition. Most prominent is the plume-like form of the honey grevillea (tharrkarre), a plant that produces nectar that can be sucked directly from the flower or stirred in water to make a sweet drink. Amid these brilliant orange flowers are darting lizards and snakes, along with centipedes, cicadas and head lice. All these animals fit in to the scheme of both everyday life and the Dreamtime, the time of the Ancestor Beings at the beginning of creation.

This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled The Dreamtime.

It is credited Museum purchase through bequest of Ida McNeil in memory of Lincoln C. McNeil and Catherine McNeil and from Pauline Cooper Noyes Fund.

Canoe Prow (New Zealand)
carved wood, red ocher.
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian....
15.2012.18

Its dimensions are

H x W: 393.7 × 134.6 cm (12 ft. 11 in. × 53 in.)

Cite this object as

Textile, Tharrakarre; Australia; silk; H x W: 393.7 × 134.6 cm (12 ft. 11 in. × 53 in.); Museum purchase through bequest of Ida McNeil in memory of Lincoln C. McNeil and Catherine McNeil and from Pauline Cooper Noyes Fund; 1992-21-1

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2DwXH/
Accession Number 1992-21-1
Object ID 18639791