Authentic Indigenous Fabric Designs

At Opakuma, we source quality fabric from all around the world.  M&S Textiles, one of our valued suppliers, deals directly with Aboriginal artists, valuing them, their culture, and their heritage.

Aboriginal Art is one of the oldest traditional arts in the world.  Aboriginal artists are widely recognized for their beautiful designs incorporating symbols of ancient ancestral Dreamtime beliefs and stories.  Art has always played a strong role in Aboriginal culture and in the telling of their stories.

Dreamtime was creation.  It was when the Ancestral Spirits came down to earth and created the animals, rocks, plants, rivers, mountains, and waterholes.  For Aboriginals, it explains the origin of the universe and the workings of nature and humanity.  It provided important life structures, regulating the understanding of family life, the relationship between the sexes, and the obligations to people, land, and spirits.  Following the completion of their creations, the human forms of the ancestors disappeared but their spirit remained in the sacred sites. 

For the Aboriginal people, the material value of the land is not important.  They see the land as part of the Dreamtime, to be preserved for future generations to appreciate.  Aboriginal lifestyle, and strong family bonds, have allowed for the successful handing down of their stories and traditional forms of art over many generations.

M & S Textiles, combine this mesmerizing art with quality fabrics, immortalizing the Aboriginal stories to help old stories remain new so that people all around the world can enjoy these amazing and colorful Dreamtime stories.

All products in our range made from these stunning fabrics are accompanied by a complimentary card explaining the fabrics story and some information about the artist

Design Info

Desert Flowers Black- Desert Flowers is a colourful design by Marie Ellis from the Northern Territory, Australia. She is a well known Aboriginal artist. She has depicted colourful desert flowers which blossom after the rainy season.

Wild Seeds and Waterhole Black- Wild Seeds and Waterhole is an excellent design by Tanya Price of Utopia.  Tanya depicts Australia’s wild flowers and wild seeds skilfully which were blown in the wind.  Many famous indigenous artists come from this region.  Modern Aboriginal art started its journey with Jeffrey Brandon, a school teacher who was posted in Utopia to teach artworks to aboriginal children.

Womens Body Dreaming Multi- Artist, Cindy Wallace was born in 1973 in Santa Teresa, 80km from Alice Springs.  ‘Awelye’ is an aboriginal word describing everything to do with a woman’s ceremony, which include body painting.  Women perform the awelye ceremonies to demonstrate respect to their country, including Dreamtime stories that belonged to their ancestors.

Body Painting Blue- Tanya Price Nangala was born in 1972, in Alron north of Alice Springs, now residing in Utopia. Tanya speaks both Anmatyerre and Alyawarra Aboriginal languages. She learnt painting from her parents and grandparents. This design depicts bush tucker foods such as bush plums, bush berries, citrus fruits etc.

Bush Food Dreaming- Tanya Price Nangala was born in 1972, in Alron north of Alice Springs, now residing in Utopia. Tanya speaks both Anmatyerre and Alyawarra Aboriginal languages. She learnt painting from her parents and grandparents. This design depicts bush tucker foods such as bush plums, bush berries, citrus fruits etc.

Onion Dreaming- Doris Inkamala is a well known Aboriginal artist from Alice Springs. In this design the wild bush onions are represented in a star shape and the floral stems as white dotted circles. Wild bush onions are more pungent than the leaves, the tall stalks grow together in small clumps, sometimes reaching up to 60cm in height. It is a favoured food for brolgas.

Spiritual Women- Artist Chandra Conway painted Spiritual Women to express the integral part of Aboriginal Dreamtime stories. The ancestor spirit came down to earth in human form and created most of the things that their future generations would need.

Corroboree- Donna McNamara is a very skilful and ardent designer with her artwork being neat and vibrant. This piece represents people attending a Corroboree. The Corroboree is a ceremonial gathering of Aboriginal people with strict unwritten regulations which attendees must follow.

Dreaming in One-Flaming Orange- Bradley Stafford is an experienced Aboriginal artist. In this design each strip depicts the age-old culture of Aboriginal dreaming such as bush food, witchetty grubs, kangaroo path, bush dreaming, long neck turtles and honey ant dreaming.

Bush Dreamings of Utopia- Tanya Price Nangala was born in 1972, in Alron north of Alice Springs, now residing in Utopia. Tanya speaks both Anmatyerre and Alyawarra Aboriginal languages. She learnt painting from her parents and grandparents. This design depicts an abundance of Dreamtime bush plum trees with their yellow and red fruits, in addition to the waterholes being guarded by wild floral plants, also in reddish and yellow tones.

Womens Body Dreaming Blue- Artist, Cindy Wallace was born in 1973 in Santa Teresa, 80km from Alice Springs. ‘Awelye’ is an aboriginal word describing everything to do with a woman’s ceremony, which include body painting. Women perform the awelye ceremonies to demonstrate respect to their country, including Dreamtime stories that belonged to their ancestors.

Wild Flowers Dreaming-Black- Tanya Price – In times of drought the landscape becomes barren. After rainfall a myriad of flowers in red and yellow colours decorate the land. One may judge the freshness of the gardens by their vibrancy and may be overwhelmed by the drastic change from barren land to an abundance of flowers.

Bush Onions Wild Flowers- Artist Jane Doolan resides in Alice Springs. In this design Jane has painted bush onions (cyperus bulbosus) and wild flowers in separate garden beds. In winter, after the rain, new flowers become abundant. These become very decorative with bright yellow, pink and lavender colours.

Four Seasons Black- Artist – Marie Ellis-NT. This design represents an abundance of wildflowers following the rainy season in the Alice Springs region. The different segments illustrate wildflowers, curvy paths and waterholes.

Fire Dreaming Olive- Artist – Janet Long. The Fire Dreaming ceremony is one of the six seasonal cycles of the traditional Aboriginal calendar. This ceremony depicts an element of the Tingari Cycle. The Fire Dreaming ceremony takes place the night before the controlled fires are lit in the bush and carries on throughout the night to provide the right relationship between the people and the land on which they depend.