Aboriginal Art – Lena Pwerle – Small Canister

Description

Lena Pwerle – Small Canister is a beautiful gift for housewarming or to update your decor in the kitchen or home.

These canisters are made from bamboo fibre and have a cork lid and they not only look great but are environmentally friendly too.

They are useful for food storage in the kitchen and also for storing all those bits and pieces in the home office, games cupboards, kids rooms and even the garage! Pair them with the Canister 15cm range to create a matching set.

Every canister provides the name and story of the artist on it’s base and lets customers know that the artist receives royalties for this product.

Care: These bamboo canisters are dishwasher safe but cannot be put in the microwave.

Measurements: 10.5cm (diameter – top) and 8.5cm (diameter – base). 11cm (height) and a volume of 550ml.

Material: Bamboo fibre, Corn Flour and Melamine.

Note: Bamboo fibre is an environmentally friendly material due is its ease and speed of growing and its biodegradability. However, products cannot be made out of bamboo fibre alone. There must be a material to help bond the bamboo fibres to hold the shape of the product and in almost all bamboo products on the market, this material is melamine. The quality of melamine can vary but rest assured that the melamine in these products is high-quality, food grade melamine. The percentage of bamboo fibre and melamine can vary a little but is usually around the 45% bamboo, 30% corn flour and 25% melamine ratio. Therefore, although these products are not 100% biodegradable they are still much better for the environment than full melamine or plastic products.

Royalties from this product go back to the artist and their community.

About the Artist and Artwork

Artwork based on art by Lena Pwerle.

Lena, wife of the late Left Hand Sam Kngwarreye, is mother to five children including that of artist Nora Petyarre. Lena grew up at Utopia Homestead, some 240km North East of Alice Springs with her siblings Ray Loy, Cowboy Loy and Louie (Louis) Pwerle. Lena has also lived in many other places in the Utopia Region, including that of Ngkwarlerlanem in the northern reaches of the Utopia region where she lived with her husband and children for many years.

Initially Lena worked in the medium of batik along with over eighty other women from the Utopia Region in Central Australia. Her work in batik is featured in ‘Utopia – A Picture Story’. In 1996 she was invited to represent Australia in Western Samoa for the Festival of Pacific Arts where she was marked as ‘among the best available talent’. In this same year she also traveled to Indonesia with other women of Utopia for a workshop funded by the Northern Territory Department of Education so that they could learn more about the art of batik.

Lena began painting for Mbantua Gallery in the mid 1990’s. Lena has maintained and developed a number of unique styles over the years. Firstly a fine circular pattern of dots in some of Lena’s earliest works reflect Soakages (or waterholes) that are spread across her land. Unkempt arced motifs represent her Awelye (women’s ceremonial body paint designs). Short repetitive linear work accented with fine dots make up her Anwekety (conkerberry) paintings. Traditional colours of ochre reds, tawny yellows and soft whites, of which belong to her country Ahalpere, bequeath her early Soakage paintings and Awelye paintings with simplicity, and great mixes of colours are deliciously abundant in her Anwekety paintings and later Soakage works.

Lena enjoys painting very much and is always found encouraging other family members to do so. Lena is a senior boss woman at Utopia and is on a number of government boards including the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (which protects the sacred sites within the NT) and the Urapuntja council which governs Utopia. Lena’s personality reflects this immense responsibility while exuding good nature and humour. A number of women’s ceremonies have been performed at Mbantua Gallery over the years, and Lena has predominately been the woman behind the scenes ensuring that Utopia ladies participate to promote their culture as well as have fun.

Find more products from Lena Pwerle here.

Find more Aboriginal artwork canisters here.