Across the desert

Aboriginal Batik from Central Australia

Kintore

In 1994 senior Pintupi women attended a batik workshop in Kintore which resulted in some inspired cotton batiks, synchronous with the Kintore/Haasts Bluff Canvas Project. Their muted compositions of layers of dots, vigorous lines and circles are derived from ceremonial body painting applied with a scribbling intensity like graffiti. Like their Warlpiri counterparts at Yuendumu, Pintupi women preferred to apply the liquid wax with a brush rather than a canting, giving their textile designs closer resemblance to paintings on canvas.