Cockatoo Creek | Modal Scarf

Product Description

• 100% Modal
• Vegan Friendly Material
• Digitally printed 
• 25cm wide by 170cm long
• Presented with information about the original artwork and Aboriginal Artist
• Royalties from sales are paid to the artist

Add colour and personality to fashion basics with Mainie's gorgeous vegan-friendly, Aboriginal art design scarves. 

The Mainie Modal scarf collection offers a colourful array of eye-catching wearable art pieces that will effortlessly transform the routine pairing of fashion staples like a cotton t-shirt with a pair of blue jeans into a super chic look.

Twist, knot, tie, belt or bow, an infinitely versatile Mainie Modal scarf can be worn in almost any manner of ways to put your own personal style stamp on everyday wardrobe basics.  

­­­­­Made from a natural plant-based textile, these exquisite wearable art pieces are designed especially for socially conscious fashion lovers who are seeking ecologically sustainable alternatives to animal-derived products such as silk and wool.  

The Artwork Story

Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming) – Cockatoo Creek

The original painting represents a place on Warlpiri country called Cockatoo Creek.  It has special significance for Warlpiri women as it is a place where they gather their food, including the bush potato.

The Yarla Jukurrpa comes from an area to the east of Yuendumu called Cockatoo Creek. 'Yarla' (bush potato [lpomea costata]) are fibrous tubers that grow beneath a low spreading plant, found by looking for cracks in the ground. This edible tuber grows from 'yartura' (roots) which seek out moisture to spout new plants. Yarla are good to eat, when cooked they are really soft and tasty.

The Jukurrpa tells of 'yarla' and 'wapirti' {bush carrot [Vigna lanceolata]) ancestors fighting a big battle in this area. The specific site associated with this painting is a 'mulju' (water soakage) called Ngarparapunyu.

In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, associated sites and other elements. The curved lines of the 'kuruwarri' (ceremonial designs) represent the 'ngamarna' (vine-like tendrils) from which grow 'jinjirla' (flowers). 'Karlangu' {digging sticks) are usually represented as straight lines. 'Karlangu'are used by women to dig for bush tucker like Yarla and Wapirti which are found underground.

The Warlpiri people have lived the Central Desert region for tens of thousands of years. They were among some of the last Aboriginal people in Australia to make contact with Europeans.  Even today, the Warlpiri have an unbroken connection to their ancestral homelands and still maintain many aspects of their traditional culture.  They keep alive their age-old Dreaming stories for future generations through their art.

The Artist

Alicka Napanangka Brown

Alicka Napanangka Brown was born on the 9th May 1998, in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Alicka is the daughter of Maria Nampijinpa Brown and granddaughter of Wendy Nungarrayi Brown, well-known artists in their own right. Alicka has one sister, Antoinette Napanangka Brown who also paints for the Warlukurlangu Art Centre.

Alicka comes from a long line of artists and has a good grounding in painting, watching her family paint and listening to her stories since she was a child.

In 2012, at the age of 14, Alicka began painting for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu.

Alicka mainly paints her Grandmother’s Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming) and her father’s Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming), stories that relate directly to the land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it.

Alicka began using traditional iconography but because of her love for pattern and colour she has developed an individualist style using pattern and design in a variety of contexts to depict her traditional jukurrpa.

Alicka attended the local Yuendumu school. When she finished school, she devoted all her time to painting.