Art and Object collection
R01996.ATS899.Wupun (Sun Mat)
| AO ID | ATS899 |
|---|---|
| Title | Wupun (Sun Mat) |
| Created | 1980? |
| Creator | Wilson, Regina Pilawuk, 1948- |
| Biography | Regina Pilawuk Wilson, a Ngan’gikurrungurr woman, was born in 1948 in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory.
Together with her husband, Harold Wilson, Regina founded the Peppimenarti (meaning ‘large rock’) Community as a permanent settlement for the Ngan’gikurrungurr people in the Daly River region, south west of Darwin in 1973. The location of the community is an important dreaming site for the Ngan’gikurrungurr language group and is situated amid wetlands and floodplains at the centre of the Daly River Aboriginal Reserve, 300 kilometres south-west of Darwin.
Regina won the General Painting category of the Telstra National Indigenous and Torres-Strait Islander Award in 2003 for a golden syaw (fish-net) painting.
Examples of Regina’s work are held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The National Gallery of Victoria, The Gallery of Modern Art (Queensland Art Gallery), The British Museum and numerous private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas.
Her paintings have been included in many group exhibitions at public and private art institutions, including the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Art, the Wynne Prize (2008 and 2009), AGNSW, and Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters at the National Museum of the Arts, Washington.
|
| Item type | Physical Object |
| Object type | ObjectsWeavingArt |
| Medium | merrepen (sand palm) and natural dyes |
| Extent (#items) | 1 |
| Extent (dimensions) | 130 cm (diameter, irregular) |
| Creation place / original location | Peppimenarti (Daly River NT Top End SD52-11) |
| Provenance | Transferred from Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, 2016 |
| Curatorial statement | Wupun, meaning Sun Mat in Ngan'gikurunggurr, is a woven mat by artist Regina Pilawuk Wilson. The Wupun represents the life given by mirri (sun) as it moves across the landscape. These decorative mats are woven by the women of Peppimenarti, in the Northern Territory, using strands of pandanus (yerrgi) and sand palm (merrepen). This Wupun in particular is made of merrepen which has been striped and then dyed with berries and colour root. This particular type of weave is Regina's own pattern which she developed from old techniques. The mat was constructed using a plaiting technique also used at times for the base of a coil basket. The sand palm fibre was plaited, coiled and stitched together, then adorned with fi (twine).
“The mat is made of sand palm…it’s plaited and sewn together … You collect the sand palm, strip it, and colour the fibres with natural colours from berries and roots. My great aunty Nelly Kendal showed me how to make the sun mat when she lived in Peppimenarti.” Regina Pilawuk Wilson, 2019
This Wupun came into the AIATSIS collection in 2016 from the Prime Minister and Cabinet Collection. The mat had no contextual information or provenance. Faced with this curators at AIATSIS had to do a deep dive into researching and provenancing the sun mat to reconnect it with the artist. In June 2019, Regina travelled from Peppimenarti to AIATSIS to view the mat. As soon as Regina saw the mat she recognised it as her own work.
“I haven’t seen this mat for a long, long time … I made this mat maybe forty years ago … The mat found me, it’s not lost anymore." Regina Pilawuk Wilson, 2019
C.Lembit 2020 |
| Subject | Art - Crafts - Mats and mat makingArt, Aboriginal Australian. |
| Access rights | Open access |
| Rights holder | Regina Pilawuk Wilson |
| Licence | Licenced to AIATSIS. All rights reserved. |
| Registration number | R01996 |