ROSELLA NAMOK - SUGAR BAG... DRY SEASON

 ROSELLA NAMOK
SUGAR BAG... DRY SEASON,  2012
179.5 x 109 cm
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
 
PROVENANCE
Lockhart River, QLD
Direct from the Artist, QLDCoo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery 
 
STORY
In Indigenous Australian parlance, the term ā€�sugar bagsā€™ is used to describe the sweet honey made by one of around 14 species of native stinginess bees found across Australia. For thousands of years, sugar bags have adorned the faces of rock-art sites in the Kimberley, Arnhem Land and the Central Desert. In most instances, the sugar bag is a symbol of tripartite significance. On the one hand it refers directly to the bush honey collected from the hollows of trees or crevices of rock shelters. On a more abstract level, the sugar bag usually refers to a particular Dreaming associated with a specific place. Lastly, the painting of sugar bags is often used to assert a totemic or ancestral connection to that particular place. In this sense, therefore, it is a visual metaphor of physical, personal and spiritual dimensions.
 
EXHIBITED
Solo exhibition Rosella Namok ā€�Yangkuri...Wet Seasonā€™, June-July 2013, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery35th Anniversary Exhibition, Oxford Street, Dec 16- Jan 2017