Annabell Amagula

Annabell Amagula is an important senior artist from Angurugu Community on Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpenteria in Northern Australia. Highly skilled in traditional fibre crafts, she is a master string maker and weaver who teaches younger generations to keep cultural knowledge strong. She incorporates traditional bush dyes and weaving with contemporary materials including ghost nets and recycled materials as well as extending her practice to include digital printed textiles. Annabell has also created a range of screen prints for textiles.

‘I grew up in Angurugu, I grew up with my father and mother, when I was 6 year old I would sit and watch my grandmother make bush bags from pandanus. When I was 10 I started making baskets. When I was 12 my great great grandmother would take us out to collect the colours for pandanus, that’s how I learned, from my elders.

I used to watch my father paint and I learned to paint copying my father.’