22024005038

Published by CompNet Systems on June 18, 2025

Status: Stock

Women’s Business fabric, black on fawn (natural tan type colour), linen

This design by Mavis Nampitjinpa Marks shows the ‘Women’s Business Story’.

This fabric has been screenprinted by hand by Publisher Textiles and Papers, ensuring the highest quality and longevity.

About the printers:

Publisher Textiles & Papers is one of Australia’s leading print houses. Focused on producing original patterns through traditional hand-screen printing methods we create bold and colourful textiles, hand printed wallpaper, clothing and fabric.

Our fabric is printed in small batches and is available in pre-cut lengths on the website, which we update regularly. For larger quantities, please email us to discuss pre-orders.

Fabric details:

This fabric is by continuous metreage going up in 50cm increments, priced at $110 per metre.

For 1m, please add 2 x 50cm to your cart and it will be cut as a continuous length ($110 for 1m).

For 2m, please add 4 x 50cm to your cart and it will be cut as a continuous length ($220 for 2m).

For 3m, please add 6 x 50cm to your cart and it will be cut as a continuous length ($330 for 3m).

A classic linen cotton blend used for dresses, skirts, pants etc. Also ideal for patchwork quilts and other craft projects.
Composition 55% Linen / 45% Cotton
Weight (gsm)200
Width (cm)137
Finish Standard

Care Instructions:

Hand wash, line dry, do not bleach, wash separately, warm iron, do not soak. The ink has been heat set for longevity, however please take care when washing (wash garments inside out if possible).

Categories: Ikuntji Artists

Name: Mitjili Napurrula

Language: Luritja

Community: Mount Liebig

Biography:

Mitjili Napurrula was born in 1945 at Papunya, 200 kilometres West of Alice Springs. She is the daughter of Tupa Tjakamarra (now deceased) and Tjunkiya Napatljarri. Her mother, Tjunkayi Napaltjarri, was a Pintupi/Luritja woman from Yumari who also became an artist of public repute. Her mother ‘came in’ from the drought-stricken Pintupi/Lurjita country seeking refuge and rations in the remote community of Haasts Bluff (Ikuntji). Along with her extended family, she was settled at Papunya, where Mitjili was born.

Dispossession and drought were only two of the factors that led to a series of migrations from the desert to mission or government settlements in the mid-twentieth century. Following the outstation movement of the late 1970's and early 1980's, Aboriginal communities sprang up throughout the region, each home to a distinctive art movement.

Like many of her generation, Mitjili witnessed the genesis of the Papunya Tula art movement and the artistic contribution made by members of her immediate family. Mitjili's brother, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula, was one of the founding members of the Papunya Tula Artists cooperative.

Mitjili grew up in Papunya and moved to Haasts Bluff with her late husband Long Tom Tjapanangka in the late 1980’s during the outstation movement. The couple started painting at Ikuntji in 1992 with the opening of Ikuntji Women’s Centre, both contributing significantly to the emerging art movement there. She gained an international following after winning the Alice Springs Art Prize in 1999.

In Mitjili's winning painting, Untitled (1999), coagulated white pigment eddies around abstract forms that refer to the Watiya Tjuta (desert oak/spearwood trees) used to make kulatas (spears). The tightly structured patterning of the key motifs and bold use of colour demonstrates the artist’s confidence in her individual artistic vision within a family of superlative artists – and the cultural heritage that continues to inform the myriad expressions of Western Desert artists.

The Watiya Tjuta in Mitjili's paintings is her father’s Tjukurrpa (dreaming) in Ilyingaungau country (Gibson Desert). This was passed down to her by her mother; she remembers “…After I got married, my mother taught me my father’s Tjukurrpa in the sand, that’s what I’m painting on the canvas”, a women’s interpretation.

Mitjili and her brother, Tjupurrula had the same father, Tupa Tjakamarra, from whom they both inherited the right to paint works related to Ilyingaungau. This site, south of Walungurru (Kintore), some 520 kilometres west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), is where the artist’s Mutikatjirri ancestors assembled their kulata (spears) for a conflict with the Tjukula men. Allusive works that refer to the straightening of kulata by Tjupurrula are among the landmark paintings of the movement’s history.

Mitjili lived at an outstation close to Papunya where she continued to paint in her later years, along side her family and fellow artists such as Ann Lane nee Dixon. Mitjili passed away in April 2019.

© the artist / art centre