Aboriginal Artists Series – Part 4

Anna Pitjara is our featured artist today. Coming from a well-known artist family, she was born in 1965 at Utopia Station northeast of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. Her late mother, Gloria Ngale, started as a pioneer artist in the batik industry. Anna worked with her turning Aboriginal designs into silk batiks in Australia. Anna inherited some Dreamtime stories from her mother, father and grandfather. As a traditional Aboriginal designer, her artworks follow various body painting designs.

The Northern Territory is most known for its semi-desert or desert areas where water is a most valued commodity.  This is most likely the reason the Aboriginals live near creeks. Anna’s depiction of waterholes in dry creeks or in the forest beds is both vibrant and colorful. As a top artist, her art pieces are displayed in national and state art galleries.

In “Waterhole” it shows the Aboriginals vigilant to find new sources in the form of waterholes or soakage trenches. This design is almost an aerial view of salt lakes and the surrounding areas.

“Waterhole and Seeds” shows off the area in strong and neat designs from the semi-dessert surroundings. It is available in three colorways.

“Sulkage”  (soakage water) – As creeks dried up, they could still get water by digging down into the soft beds. They scooped out the first lot (not suitable for drinking). Then clean drinkable water flowed back into the hole. Aboriginals were always looking for waterholes wherever they went. This fabric is available in three colorways.

“Sandhill”  This is one of our most popular fabrics. Geograhically, a dune of sand is built by wind action that results in many different shapes and sizes. The importance of dunes has been recognized by the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These countries have developed significant programs for the dunes’ protection and stabilizing them. The dunes provide a highly specialized habitat for forms of flora and fauna. “Sandhill” comes in six colorways.