Kurlama
1991
- Medium
- earth pigments on Stringybark (Eucalyptus sp.)
- Measurements
- 48.0 × 32.6 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Melville Island, Northern Territory
- Accession Number
- O.213-1991
- Department
- First Nations Australia
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1991
© Maria Josette Orsto. Tiwi Designs
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation - Gallery location
- Gallery 2
Ground Level, NGV Australia - About this work
-
Maria Josette Orsto is the leading Tiwi batik artist at Tiwi Designs. She was born at Pularumpi (Garden Point) on 30 October 1962, the daughter of two leading Tiwi artists, Declan Apuatimi and Jean Baptist Apuatimi. Her mother’s Country is Marluwu on Bathurst Island, and her father’s Country is Munupi, the Pularumpi area of Melville Island. Orsto belongs to the japujapunga (march fly) skin group and the Trick dance, inherited from both her mother’s and father’s side. In her early 20s, Josette was instructed in the Tiwi arts of painting and sculpture by her father and collaborated with him in his later work. She has carved and painted since 1982. Since her father’s death, Josette has continued to work in a similar style, but in 1987 she learnt to make batik and the following year started to work with gouache, first on paper then on canvas.