The Aboriginal Art Basket Gallery:  

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Beautiful, colorful, intricately woven baskets are produced by hand throughout Aboriginal Australia. Some the most striking are created in the Northern Territory area of Arnhem Land served by an art and cultural center at Maningrida. This area of approximately 10,000 square kilometers includes many clans and language groups whose mixed traditions have contributed to a rich variety of artistic creations.

The baskets are predominantly coiled, string or "dilly" bags. They are woven from various natural fibers such as those made from the leaves of the pandanus plant, the bark of trees like Kurrajong, Brachychiton diversifolius, Brachychiton paradoxum and Ficus virens. These fibers are dyed in vivid oranges, yellows, reds, blacks and purples by boiling in ground up roots of plants like Pogonolobus reticulatus and wood ash from Eucalyptus alba.

Maningrida is a small community that sits on the remote northern coast of Australia's Arnhem Land at the estuary of the Liverpool River. During much of the year the community can be reached only by light aircraft.

Baskets traditionally are used for gathering foods like roots, tubers, berries, honey and fish. The baskets offered by Aboriginals: Art of the First Person have been woven for commercial purposes and sale to collectors and museums by the finest aboriginal artists, which come from Maningrida and other aboriginal communities.

In addition to baskets, artists at the Maningrida community also use paperbark, pandanus and palm fiber to weave three-dimensional figurative sculpture. These figures represent common creatures in the area: echidnas, bandicoots, camp dogs, crocodiles and mice.

(We are indebted to Fiona Salmon of Maningrida for the background material included in the foregoing discussion.)

For larger pictures, descriptions and prices, click on the appropriate thumbnail.

B218 Aboriginal pandanus basket
B218
B219 Aboriginal pandanus basket
B219
Aboriginal string bag from Maningrida
KD13
KB43 Elsie Milindirri basket
KB43
KD14 Mary Jinguwaraba string bag
KD14
KC16 Aboriginal basket
KC16
KC99 Cindy Jinmarabynana basketKC99
KD01 Susan Malgarrli basket
KD01
KD11 Carol Liyawanga string basket
KD11
Australian Aboriginal basket
B223
Australian Aboriginal basket
B220
Australian Aboriginal basket
KB69
Aboriginal basket with coiled handle
B286

Tiwi tunga from Pukamani ceremony
K161

Australian Aboriginal basket
KD32
Australian aboriginal basket
KC17
Australian Aboriginal pandanus basket
K143

KD07 Lena Njamarrayku bandicoot
KD07
Australian Aboriginal woven camp dog
KD04

KD06 Lena Njamarrayku camp dog
KD06

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