Untitled (Four Armbands)

Artist Cabrini Matalopia Wilson (1969)

Date1996

Object number00029100

NamePainting

MediumOchre on art board

DimensionsOverall: 564 × 178 × 1 mm, 0.2 kg
Display dimensions: 380 × 565 mm
Mount / Matt size (D Fini Mount): 630 × 865 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionAn untitled painting by Cabrini Matalopia Wilson. Totem/skin: Kukuni (water) Dance: Tadawalli (shark) HistoryCabrini Wilson is an artist working at Jilamara Arts and Crafts at Milikapiti on Melville Island. Her country is Tamulampi near the southern tip of Melville Island. Cabrini was bought up by her aunty, the renowned Tiwi artist Kitty Kantilla at Paru just across the Aspley Strait from the former Bathurst Island Mission of Nguiu. In 1980 Cabrini and Kitty moved to Nguiu on Bathurst Island where Cabrini went to school. In 1981 Kitty and Cabrini moved to Milikapiti on Melville Island. Influenced by the work of Kitty and the other Paru artists, Cabrini started painting in the mid 1980's when she was about seventeen. Cabrini recalls that: "While growing up at Paru I started watching Kitty carve and learning how she made figure out of iron wood. I also learning how she changed yellow into red by putting it on the coal and used black out of charcoal. I used to travel back to Milikapiti to see my own mother and families. As I grew, I went back and forward to Nguiu for school and spent weekends at Milikapiti I was learning skills like cooking and sewing and the best was sewing. I started carving painting and going out with Kitty, learning to find which tree to carve and how to use sticks for panit brushes. When I was 17 I started to carve and paint pukumani poles and figures with Kitty and other older people at Paru. My mother had kidney problem and she lived in Darwin. After she died I went back to live at Milikapiti and stopped doing carving for a little while. Then I went back to Paru to continue carving and painting. I carved a bird and a man. That's when Steve Anderson was the co-ordinator at Tiwi designs. I didnt' stay long living at Paru after my grandmother died. I went back to Milikapiti."SignificanceCabrini Wilson is one of a younger generation of Tiwi artists to produce work at the Jilamara Arts and Crafts at Milikapiti on Melville Island. Her style is inspired by her own totem and dance, but also by things around her. Figurative elements have become much more evident in the younger generation's paintings and the designs of these young artists are more elaborate than older style paintings.