Patsy Ross b. 1975
Women making hairstrings and collecting wild bush medicine seed, 2026
30 x 70 cm
11 3/4 x 27 1/2 inches
11 3/4 x 27 1/2 inches
acrylic on canvas
TIAA-PR202696
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Patsy paints various aspects of women’s business, like collecting bush seeds and other tucker like wild blackberries and bush onion, and gathering and preparing bush medicine. In these paintings, she...
Patsy paints various aspects of women’s business, like collecting bush seeds and other tucker like wild blackberries and bush onion, and gathering and preparing bush medicine. In these paintings, she includes traditional symbols and iconography like the u-shape to depict the women and straight lines to depict their wana (digging sticks), and variations of circles and roundels to depict sites of significance, like waterholes or soakage sites, or collection places for tucker or medicinal plants.
Patsy often depicts wirriji(hairstrings) in her paintings, represented by curved lines with tufted ends.
Spinning hairstring - combining strands of human hair into a strong rope - was
practiced by both men and women, usually for ceremonial purposes. Wirriji was often fixed
to a “belt” around the waist, with the hairstrings hanging down like a skirt. Patsy says the
older ladies would attach beads to their hairstrings, so they would click
and make sounds while they danced and performed ceremony.
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