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Catalogue Number: 25/344
This is a painting about Aboriginal women working together to gather bush tomatoes, a traditional food found on Country after the rains. The curved lines in the artwork represent the women sitting on the ground, they have a coolamon beside them, a traditional carved bowl used in the old days to carry food in. After a big rain, Aboriginal women from remote communities in Central Australia go out into the bush to look for the bush tomato plant, it has green leaves and small purple flowers. Soon, green fruits begin to grow. When these fruits turn yellow, they are ready to eat, sometimes the fruit left in the sun turns brown and dried, this is still good to eat.How to find bush food is passed down from mothers, aunties, and grandmothers to daughters and nieces. Aboriginal women know where the plants grow and through stories, time on Country, and shared experience, knowledge is handed down—one generation teaching the next.