New Australian Aboriginal Painting

A great new piece of art came up for sale today. This is a great example of why I wanted to set up Karuna Village - Aboriginal artists from Australia produce some of the best indigenous art in the world, and this is a perfect example - a painting very much tied in with the aboriginal beliefs and landscape.

The piece is by artist Paddy Japaljarri Stewart.

The title of the piece is Ngarlu Jukurrpa (Love Story Dreaming)

It is Acrylic on Linen, executed 2005, and is 122cm x 91cm in size.

The Dreaming site of Miinypa or Yanyilingi is Ngarlu, meaning "red rock", country east of Yuendumu.

Jungarrayi man called Lintipilinti who lived at Ngarlu fell in love with a Napangardi woman, a tabu relation as the women was his skin mother in-law. This relation is forbidden to him under the Warlpiri skin system. Lintipilinti fell in love with the Napangardi women when he saw her.  Lintipilinti was very impressed and aroused by her beauty and began to wonder how he could win the Napangardi. He went to Ngarlu and made hair string for her, singing as he worked.

Paddy has depicted the hair string spindel 'wirigy' by the 4 black shapes in the corners of this painting. The Napangardi women could not sleep and felt strange in her stomach, she felt sick. She realised that someone was singing for her. A little bird visited her every day taking Jungarrayi’s songs to her.

That bird can still be heard sometimes in the bush - It helps people find certain bush foods. It also talks to people when they are lonely, sad or in danger. Lines on the canvas represent the force of the song pulling the Napangardi women to Lintipilinti. When the two lovers met again and made love they turned to stone, as their relationship was tabu in Warlpiri skin system. The place where they turn to stone can still be seen at Ngarlu today.

The story behind the art is as important to us as the piece itself. If you re interested in this or similar kinds of art then visit our online gallery at www.karunavillage.com

Welcome to the Karuna Village Blog

Hello everyone! My name is Jasper and this is the first of a regular blog on the trials and triumphs of my new Fair Trade Fine Art site www.karunavillage.com Karuna Village is a nonprofit agency.

I am British and have lived in USA for just over two years - just in case American readers find some of the spelling slightly different! 

The eventual aim is to bring you the stories of the people behind the art that is on offer on the Karuna Village site. It is still very early days for the site but, eventually, my wife (Naomi) and I plan to travel to the individual countries to develop relations with artists personally and, of couse establish relations with new artists. Both Naomi and I are keen travelers and travelling was very much part of the plan when the idea for selling fair trade fine art came up. Telling the stories of the artists and their culture is a very important part of what we are trying to do at Karuna Village and, where possible, we provide printed information about the art piece and information about the artist, their background and their culture with each piece of art we sell.

At the moment, we are not in a position to travel to each and every country to obtain our art and so are dealing with several intermediary groups and suppliers. However, we only work with groups and suppliers that operate on a fair trade basis, and we only offer you the very best of the art we come across. But, I have to say that there is a lot of very good art out there, and most of it is very affordable. Please feel free to browse the site and I hope you will support our mission to educate the community about fair trade and its benefits to our artists and their communities by buying a piece of art.