Kieren Karritpul – Pandanus Mat 2026

Size:  40.5 x 51 cm

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

Pandanus Mat

The subject of this artwork is a Pandanus twined mat. Often referred to as “sun mats” – they are made from Pandanus fibre are created by skilled weavers in the Daly River region. The weavings radiate out from a central point with fibre spokes being added as they grow in diameter. Fibres are twined around the spokes in bands. Weaving techniques used may be be simple twining, however, elaborate patterns are often introduced.

The strong prickly leaves of the Pandanus tree (pandanus spiralis), found throughout the Top End of Australia, are stripped and dried to create strong but brittle fibres called ‘strings’. 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 and mordants 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. Working with Pandanus is done by women.

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)