Ikuntji Artists

We are Ikuntji Artists

You can find us in a small (tiny!) community called Haasts Bluff in Central Australia, 230 km west of Alice Springs. We are an art centre, 100% Aboriginal owned and not-for-profit. We make paintings, limited edition prints, jewellery and fabric designs. Now we want to make books!

We would really appreciate your help with printing and launching our new book: Ikuntji Textiles - it's the story of our fabric designs and printing. So far we have put in our own funds and got a small amount of government support, now we need tor raise money to print it in Australia!! Everything is ready to go and we want to print in May 2022.

This project has been a labour of love and we are self publishing. We've done heaps of work already with a fantastic team and are nearly there. We're offering some lovely little thank you presents to our supporters who make a contribution to our project - we're a charity with PBI/DGR status so your contribution is tax deductible. You can see from our budget (below) how much work we've done ourselves and how our dear friends have donated time/expertise too.

Any donation will be gratefully accepted. No amount is too small (or too big). 

Below: What the front cover of our new book will look like

About our book

We have so many stories to share! The book has lots of wonderful photos and stories from our members and our supporters and partners. It's in three sections: Our Story, Our Artists and Our Collaborations.

It's in full colour, 29 x 33 cm, more than 250 pages and softback and will be printed in Canberra. We will be selling our book and all proceeds will go to support Ikuntji Artists to invest in more projects - we have plans for more books! 

Below: A peak inside our book that will be printed SOON!

History of fabric printing at Ikuntji

Fabric screen printing at Ikuntji is both old and new(ish). We did fabric printing on t-shirts and some fabric in the very early days but it was not until 2017 that we began creating designs for "yardage" - continuous printing on full width fabric base cloth. In the art centre we have very limited facilities, not much space and the only tables we can print fabric on are two metres long. For special occasions like exhibitions we print 2 metre lengths of fabric with our designs at our art centre, but for longer runs we need to outsource.

Below: Arts Worker Kelly Dixon printing Mitjili Napurrula's design onsite at our art centre.

In 2018 we found partners, Publisher Textiles who are specialist fabric screen printers in Sydney. They have 20 metre tables they print on. They are expert, taking the care we deserve. In 2018 we launched our first yardage designs printed on cotton drill. Now we have a beautiful range of fabrics printed on cotton, linen, Tencel/linen and silk.

Below: Printing Eunice's design on the BIG tables at Publisher Textiles

Our artists

We have so many talented artists, some of them very elderly and others are just starting to paint. Our art centre is like an art school, we have intergenerational teaching and the passing on of stories and knowledge and skills. In the book our artists explain what the fabric printing means to them.

Below: Alison Multa is wearing a piece of fabric designed by Eunice Napanangka Jack.

Eunice Napanangka Jack is one of our senior artists and has won many prizes for her original paintings, then in 2021 she took out the Textile Design Award at the National Indigenous Fashion Awards 2021. Her two fabric designs are featured in our book.

Below: A peak inside our book that will be printed SOON!

Collaborations

Our collaborations are a very special part of our fabric printing story - and the book documents them. We love working with other businesses and institutions. For example, we produced our first clothing collection with Magpie Goose in 2019 and it became a bestseller. We were very lucky - the project generated royalties for our designers through the first year of COVID and really helped our art centre in a difficult time. The collaboration also made it possible for people all over the country to wear clothing made from our fabrics, including our artists.

Below: Awesome Magpie Goose shirt printed with Alice Nampitjinpa's Watiya Tjuta design

In 2021 we did a really special project with Flying Fox Fabrics called Frock On! Together we invited creatives from around Australia to make clothing from our fabrics and send them back to us. We had a fantastic response and 28 ladies made wearable art and clothing for men, women and children. It went on exhibition in Darwin at Songlines and some of the clothes have travelled around the world. It's one of the many collaboration stories we share.

Below: Fabulous frocks by Marcia Russell (Black Cat Couture) and Olga Bryukhovets (Ossom) for Frock On! 2021 

About Ikuntji Artists

From humble beginnings Ikuntji Artists has become one of the most well known and loved art centres in Central Australia.

Ikuntji Artists was the first art centre established by women in the Western Desert Art Movement. In the 1980s women began painting in Haasts Bluff in the aged care facility. Our grandmothers, aunties and mothers had been instructed by their husbands and fathers and they had often assisted the men in completing their paintings. As it turns out they were really talented as well. 

Below: Our little art centre in Haasts Bluff

Our art centre was initially set up in 1992 to be a women’s centre providing services such as catering for old people and children in the community. The first foray into arts and crafts was printing T-shirts then the artists began making acrylic paintings on linen and handmade paper. These artworks quickly gained the attention of the Australian and international art world as well as earning the centre an impressive reputation for fine art. The focus changed fully from a women’s centre to an art centre in 2005 with the incorporation of Ikuntji Artists Aboriginal Corporation. We are governed by a board of seven local Indigenous directors. Our members speak a number of languages and the main one is Luritja. Today Ikuntji Artists' members are represented in many national and international galleries and institutions, our artists have travelled the world and the diversity of our activities is amazing.  Please see our website for more information and our online shop if you'd like to browse our fine art and products. 

Our art is famous for bold colour choice, decisive brush strokes and internationally renowned artists. You can see this in our fabric designs.

Below: We are the dot in the middle of Australia, west of Alice Springs

Want to see more?

If you're not tired of reading and looking at our fabrics yet - here's a little film we made last year in collaboration with Flying Fox Fabrics and Nicholas Gouldhurst. You can see how truly fabulous our fabrics are.

Total Budget

$5,000 Editing

$12,000 Graphic Designer

$7,000 Layout 

$5,000 Photography

$2,000 Final Edits

$2,000 Translations

$2,000 Transcriptions of Luritja texts

$3,000 Proofreading, indexing, ISBN

$950 Freight

$20,000/$30,000 Printing 1,000/2,000 copies

$58,950 (1,000 copies)

or

68,950 (2,000 copies) TOTAL

Donations

Contributing authors/interviewees

Photographs by Tobias Titz

Funding

$11,000 ILA (Indigenous Languages and Arts Program, Office for the Arts, Australian Government)

Our Contribution

We have been working hard to raise funds from our sales and our staff have done extra work in their own jobs to make this project happen. If we can reimburse Ikuntji Artists for some of the costs - that'd be awesome!

What we need: 

To print 1,000 copies we need $20,000

To print 2,000 copies we need $30,0000

To print 2,000 copies and pay back Ikuntji $10,000+ (so we can invest in art materials and other projects) we need $40,000+.