Cushion Cover - Damien and Yilpi Marks (medium) #3

This traditional Kashmiri handicraft vitally supplements an often fluctuating rural income. Wool is custom dyed to match the original artist's image and hand stitched onto a cotton base. Each cushion is backed with natural coloured cotton canvas, and closes with a zip. 

These cushions are designed from Kaltjiti Arts, one of the art centres in the isolated Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in the remote north west corner of South Australia. Focusing on fine art instead of predictable commercialised Aboriginal images, this cross-cultural collaboration uses the powerful images from the artists of the APY Lands and the traditional cultural craft heritage of the Kashmir region.

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).

CUSHION COVER ONLY 

40 cm x 40 cm

Designed in Australia
Made in India