Regina Pilawuk Wilson

Regina Pilawuk Wilson is an Australian Aboriginal artist known for her paintings, printmaking and woven fibre-artworks. She paints syaws (fish nets), warrgarri (dilly bag), and message sticks. Her work has been shown in many Australian and international museums, collections and galleries. She has won the General Painting category of the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in 2003 for a syaw (fish net) painting. Wilson has been a finalist for the Kate Challis RAKA Award, the Togart Award, and the Wynne Prize. Peppimenarti means “large rock.” This permanent settlement made for the Ngangikurrungurr people is situated amid floodplains and wetlands at the center of the Daly River Aboriginal Reserve, which lies 250 kilometers southwest of Darwin. This location is a crucial dreaming site for the Ngangikurrungurr language group.

Syaw replicates the elaborate and delicate patterning of woven objects like mates, baskets, and fish traps. Shifting colours and repeated patterns evoke the action of a weaver's hands. Drawing from her grandmother's work, she paints a wide variety of stitching and weaving designs. The weaving method used in Syaw is the same as the stitch used in weaving the warrgarri (dilly bag), except bigger. The pinbin vine or bush vine that grows near the river is stripped into fibres which are woven into a net. The Syaw catches fish, prawns, and edible creatures in rivers. thumb

Significant exhibitions

2006: Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC and The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. 2016: Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA. 2016-2019: Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia. Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Her work has been included in group exhibitions at many public and private institutions including the Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2008) and 'Dreaming their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters’ at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC (2006). Australian Parliament House The British Museum National Gallery of Australia National Gallery of Victoria Queensland Art Gallery The Phillips Collection