Fibre Works from Gapuwiyak: Gapuwiyak Culture & Arts

Gapuwiyak artists are best known for their innovative fibre art creations. Their animal sculptures, woven mats and coiled baskets feature especially bright colours using traditional and new techniques that share deep knowledge of plants, country and culture.

Master-weavers make baskets and mats from Gunga (Pandanus Spiralis), which are often dyed with natural bush recipes of roots, tubers and leaves to make the strong colours. Twinning and coiling skills shape the Gunga into Bathi (baskets) and flat mats that are made for the art market. Traditional forms are still used in ceremony. Other traditional forms are being refigured into new artistic expressions.

Mr Cameron and Ms Bidingal passed a few years ago. Mr Cameron worked with his wife Penny Wanapuyngu who would make the basic basket form, Mr Cameron would then reshape them into one of the many animals that feature in songlines and other animals he knew from his time spent in country. The skills of these artists are kept alive by the next generations. Today, Mr Cameron and Penny's daughter, Aleisha continues to make spirited fibre works of camp dogs, animals and birds, and Ms Bidingal’s daughter Djamirri continues to make the fine classic ‘dilly-bag’ form like her mother.

Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts is a remote Art Centre in east Arnhemland. We are owned by our Yolŋu members, have a Yolŋu Board, and employ a Manager and Arts Workers. We support over one hundred artists from Gapuwiyak and surrounding homelands.

Gapuwiyak is a small Yolŋu town in the middle of Miyarrka, a region around Arnhem Bay in East Arnhem Land. There are eighteen clans in this region each with their own interconnected clan estates, songs, patterns and designs.

The Art Centre assists artists to collect and prepare materials, make high-quality art, explore ideas, develop knowledge and skills, exhibit, market and sell their work.

©2023 Gapuwiyak Culture & Arts Aboriginal Corporation