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Catalogue Number: 25/379
This painting tells a story of Aboriginal women working together to gather bush tomatoes, often found in spinifex country.
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 tiny pink/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.
The smaller curved lines in the artwork represent the women sitting on the ground. The larger yellow/ brown curved lines are body paint. Body paint is different coloured ochre found in the ground and crushed into a powder using a smooth rock.
Aboriginal women know where the bush tomato plants grow and where to find ochre and through stories, time on Country, and shared experience, knowledge is handed down—one generation teaching the next.