Since 2017, curator Joan Winter has been spending time with the Omie, an isolated community living in the remote rainforest mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Oro Province. Getting to know the approximately 1800 people living there, Winter has been learning about the cultural significance of tapa, a type of bark cloth made from trees like the paper mulberry and fig. Created by removing the inner bark and beating it until soft and supple, this process forms a material akin to cloth, which is decorated and worn as a skirt for marriages, rites of passage and ceremonies.
When Skirts Become Artworks: Sihoti’e Nioge is a result of a joint project between Winter and Court House Gallery in Cairns, exhibiting works by emerging and senior Omie tapa artists. A tradition spanning multiple cultures across the Pacific, tapa is primarily created by young women, and has only recently been extended to male practitioners. As an artform, the Omie’s tapa designs continue to evolve: “The Omie’s use of grid lines and repetitive patterning gives their tapa a contemporary aesthetic, making their beaten bark cloth remarkable among the Pacific nations,” says Winter.
In the exhibition are two forms of tapa distinct to the Omie. Nioge, a painted bark cloth and Sihoti’e, an appliqued cloth that remains unpainted or minimally soaked with mud. On the Nioge cloth’s surface are intricate designs depicting hornbill bird beaks, eggs from the dwarf cassowary and fern fronds. The artists use natural pigments extracted from leaves, sap, fruit and ash. Depictions of ancient tattoo designs and tobacco pipe carvings also illustrate the surface of several tapas.
The Omie’s dynamic compositions will tour nationally. “This is the first tour of their work to public institutions in Australia,” says Winter. “The Omie deserve this attention given their innovative, diverse and most colourful tapa art.”
When Skirts Become Artworks: Sihoti’e Nioge
Omie Tapa Artists
Caloundra Regional Gallery
21 October—4 December
This article was originally published in the September/October 2022 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
In Anmatyerr artist Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne—which focuses on the Central Desert food source Arnwekety (bush plum)—the influence and love of her Country and culture is palpable. Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana is now showing at Niagara Galleries.
Artists need not fear the spectre of AI-generated art. Instead, Oslo Davis suggests, we need to start reaping the rewards.
For Lardil and Yangkaal writer and curator Maya Hodge, Archie Moore’s presentation at this year’s Venice Biennale is a powerful symbol of reckoning—one that asks the world to bear witness to the long shadows of colonial violence and clears space for possibilities ahead.
Emma Phillips has a knack for catching moments of unbridled humanity. In her latest exhibition at ReadingRoom, she shines a light on the breadth of her practice, amalgamating several projects from the last decade.
