Minga Jilamara - Body paint Design on Stringybark with Ochre Pigment by Alexandrina Kantilla

Artist: Alexandrina Kantilla Title: Minga Jilamara - Body paint Design Art Centre: Ngaruwanajirri, Tiwi Islands Size: 32 x 9cm Medium: Stringbark with Ochre Pigments with PVA fixative Year born: 1974 Skin Group: Pig Dance: March Fly Ngaruwanajirri means “Helping one another” This Centre began in 1994 with funding for the support of Tiwi with a disability and the core attendants today are disability artists. They have each developed exceptional creative skill. Sometimes referred to as free, loose, naive, or Outsider art, the work of Ngaruwanajirri artists is unique. A separate group of able-bodied Tiwi carvers work alongside this core group in a purpose-built space adjacent to the Keeping Place creating both large and small carvings. Alexandrina Kantilla has been exhibiting her work since her first group exhibition, Pupuni Yinkiti Arimuwu Kapi Winga, Good Food- Sea Food, an ArtBack Nets Travelling Exhibition from 2000-2004. Alexandrina worked at the Ngaruwanajirri Art Centre, Bathurst Island, as a painter in natural ochres on Arches paper, on four colour lino block prints on paper, but her forte is batik- designing waxing and dyeing silk scarves using Drimarine K dyes and Naphthol dyes,. She has been included in most Ngaruwanajirri group exhibitions exhibiting long batik silk scarves. The latter, much admired for their beauty, were featured in the Darwin Supreme Court Festival of Darwin exhibition in 2006. In 2007 her silk scarves were again featured in“Yirrinkiripwaja” a Ngaruwanajirri Group exhibition at FAC Gallery, University of Wollongong, N.S.W and in 2008 in the’ Fabulous Top End Fabrics - Exhibition of Textiles from the Tiwi Islands’ exhibition at Territory Craft. Alexandrina Kantilla was again included in the extensive exhibition ‘Ngaruwanajirri: helping one another’ at Charles Darwin University Gallery 2011.