Maria Josette Orsto

Maria Josette Orsto (30 October 1962 – 30 November 2020) Her father, Declan Apuatimi, and her mother, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi,

Career Maria Josette Orsto's career began by assisting her father at Tiwi Island Design arts cooperative.

Tiwi Island Art

History Tiwi designs used to be painted on people's bodies for ceremonies in order to disguise the identity of the individual so they are hidden from the spirit of the deceased. 2012 - The second triennial indigenous art exhibition, Undisclosed, at the National Gallery of Australia, included her works, Jikapayinga (Female crocodile) (2007), Pakitiringa (Rain) (2007), and Mayinga (2009). 2012 Maternal Lines, Darwin Festival 2012, Jean Baptiste Apuatime and Maria Josette Orsto's 2 and 3 dimensional prints, showing with Bede Turngutalum's Japanese-style wood blocks prints. 21 December 2015 to 21 February 2016 - Being Tiwi exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary art in Australia featured prints and paintings by nine Tiwi artists including Maria Josette Orsto's piece Kulama (2010). 2020 to 2021 - Jilamara, five of Orsto's batik designs on silk lengths and one batik on cotton were featured in the National Gallery of Victoria's TIWI exhibition. Jilamara means body painting to celebrate kulama (coming of age ceremony). In the same exhibition, Orsto made the bark basket used as part of a ceramic sculpture created by Mark Virgil Puautjimi. together with a further work, Kurlama. and Mayinga Jilimara (2013). QAGOMA: Kulama body painting (2002), purchased 2003, Ngirringani jilamara (2007), purchased 2007, Jilimara (1990), gift of Christopher Chapman.