Kieren Karritpul – Dilly Bag 2026

Size:  35.5 x 35.5 cm

• Medium: Acrylic on Canvas – on prestretched canvas
• Can be displayed portrait or landscape
• Certificate provided

String Dilly Bags

Dilly bag is the generic term for a traditionally made bag created from natural fibres.

Bush string can made from the leaves, roots or fibrous bark of specific plants. One of the most common fibres used are merrepen or sand palm leaves (Livistona humilis). The sand palm is endemic to the Top End of the Northern Territory. In bag making a looping stitch is then used to create a strong and very useful object. The bag maker starts at the bottom of the bag and works upwards and in the round, sewing across the bottom at the end.

When working with merrepen the leaves are stripped to make a fine, short fibre that is then spun on the upper thigh with a motion that twists two separate fibres at the same time in one direction then reverses the direction so the strands spin back and twist around each other forming a strong two-ply yarn. The string made from the palm by an accomplished spinner is fine, regular and has flexibility and a slight lustre. Traditionally there are many uses for bush string as well, both utilitarian and ceremonial.

Other plants used in making string dilly bags include red-flowered kurrajong (Brachychiton megaphyllus), banyan, kapok and burney vine. Access to metal containers has allowed women to experiment with local flowers, roots and other plant parts to make natural dyes that are boiled with the fibres to set the colours. Each region has its own palette of dyes and the women pride themselves on the depth of colour they can achieve.

Kieren Karritpul

Kieren Karritpul is an outstanding and award winning artist who has work has been featured in solo exhibitions with Nomad (Darwin) and Tolarno Galleries (Melbourne) and group exhibitions around the world. His most recent solo exhibition was YERR WURRKEME MARRGU in May 2025 at Tolarno https://tolarnogalleries.com/exhibitions/yerr-wurrkeme-marrgu/

• Born 1994, lives and works in Nauiyu, Daly River, Northern Territory, Australia
• Traditional Country: Malfiyin
• Language: Ngen’gi wumirri

In Daly River artist Kieren Karritpul’s art there is no escaping the woven lines of inspiration. The woven form is both subject and metaphor in his work, and also to some extent part of their process. In his first solo exhibition, Karritypul, the titles of his paintings, prints and textile-based work all indicated a particular woven form including the yerggi which is actually a pre-woven form, yerrgi being the Daly River word (Ngan’gikurrungurr language) for the ubiquitous pandanus plant, the Screw Palm, Pandanus spiralis which together with the Sand Palm (merrepen, Livistona humilis) are the main sources of fibre for Top End weavers….

In these abstracted views, the woven form almost becomes mandala-like with the imagery built up from radiating bands of short parallel lines. In this sense the line can be seen as a faithful transposition of the coil weave technique rather than the traditionally longer, looser stitches though it is in effect more about Kieren’s visual-poetic licence in the process of translating one form into another to become something much more than what it represents; to transcend.

– Maurice O’Riordan, Director, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, 2015 (Woven Lines catalogue essay excerpts)