Making the Ancestors Smile

In Making the Ancestors Smile, Karritpul explores his relationship to his culture and the land around him. He speaks of being woven into the land, the place his ancestors have lived for generations. Karritpul uses the metaphor of the woven surface to speak of the breathing land and its importance to Indigenous identity and ongoing culture.

This is his first exhibition at Tolarno Galleries.

In my works you can see many lines and dots or squiggly lines because I see it in the land.  The land is not always still.  You can see that movement in my works.  And the lines are the water flowing, or the trees, or the leaves, the grass …  When I go out into the land, I can feel the land.  It is breathing and I am breathing with the land.

Kieren Karritpul, 2022