Better World Arts Card - Damien and Yilpi Marks (975)

Large art card, 175 x 125mm, blank inside, supplied with a white envelope.  Printed in Australia by Better World Arts.

The artists -

Damien and Yilpi Marks are a husband and wife team who paint both collaboratively and individually using major iconography of the Central Desert to tell stories of their homelands.

The art -

This is a very detailed painting which describes a dry time of year in Damien’s homeland, Mount Liebig. The painting illustrates aspects of landscape and culture around that area that was told to Damien by his great-grandmother and great- grandfather. There are women sitting with their children collecting bush potatoes (the mass of red shapes at the bottom of the painting). The women are talking and getting ready for a ceremony. There is one man (wati) sitting down with his waru (spear). The spinifex is dry and so the man is walking around making bushfires. He is a good man, he is undertaking controlled burnings so the spinifex burns up and then good fruits can grow after this. There are several symbols in this painting. The small sun-like symbols represent women’s body painting – these are the images the women are painting on each other as they sit down ready for inma – traditional ceremony. There is a dry creek bed running through the painting (in red and white), and there are cracks in the ground and claypans. There are also dried rockholes (tjukula), and next to them are tali – sandhills.

All products produced by Better World Arts cross cultural projects return royalties to the artists and their communities.