Cross Art Project Kings Cross: How it all began. Exhibition

How It All Began: Tiwi Textiles and Prints draws on Diana Wood Conroy’s archives including Tiwi textiles from 1974, diaries, tapestries and watercolour painting, and from the joint book Tiwi Textiles, co-authored with Bede Tungutalum (launched December 2022). The artists use cloth and paper to tell tales of encounter, of Country, of creative cultural survival and economic adventure, of uneven government initiatives and of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists seeking new spaces in the art-world. This exhibition makes manifest historical interactions across cultures, feeding pathways to voice, treaty and truth.

Click on the above image or HERE to see the exhibition images on the Cross Art Projects website

Tiwi Textiles Design Making Process with Bede Tungutalum

Tapestry Commission 1973

'Glory' Tapestry commission for Macquarie University, wool and cotton, 3m x 3m, 1973.

Diana working on tapestry Glory, 1973        

Tapestry Commissions and Collections

1976 "Darkness into Light" woven tapestry, hand dyed and some handspun wool on a cotton warp, suspended from a brass rod. Dimensions: 3.5m x 5m overall.

Chosen from a competition of five selected artists organised in 1975 by Architects Noel Bell Ridley Smith, for a large textile piece to hang in the newly built St Andrew's House, behind St Andrews Cathedral in Australia Square, Town Hall, Sydney.

At the time Sonia Delaunay and the Bauhaus were strong influences, as well as the vital abstraction of Aboriginal art. I was working on the design when I was co-ordinator of Tiwi Designs on Bathurst Island, Northern Territory in 1974. It took eighteen months to weave, made in three sections which were sewn together, and was installed in September 1976. It hung in the foyer of St Andrews House, visible from Australia Square, until about 2003 when it was decided to make a coffee bar in the foyer.  My research assistant Lycia Trouton  discovered it had been put in storage at St Andrew's Cathedral. Years later I had a request from St David's church in the Anglican Dioscese of Thirroul in Wollongong, to see whether thy might be able to repurpose it. I was very sad when the administrators of St Andrews Cathedral told me it had been lost, despite its great size and weight.

Installing 'Darkness into Light' September 1976, St Andrews House, Australia Square, Sydney.