Tarisse King | 'Earth Cycles Coolamon, 2021' | 60x17x7cm

Code: DDSTK21218A

Artist: Tarisse King

Title: Earth Cycles Coolamon

Area: Darwin, NT

Community: Gurindji / Waanyi

Medium: Mild Steel Etched

Size: 60x17x7cm

Year: 2021

The Sculpture

This coolamon takes Tarisse King's Earth Cycles imagery out of the painting and into solid form. It was made in mild steel at the Murphy Foundry, which works closely with each artist to carry the imagery of their paintings into new mediums. The design is drawn directly from one of Tarisse's original Earth Cycles paintings and etched into the outer surface of the steel, so that every line, mark and tonal shift from the painting is carried faithfully across into the metal.

The coolamon itself is a traditional carrying vessel, used across Aboriginal life to carry food, water and even babies, and it remains a central and familiar object in that life. At sixty centimetres, this piece is made to stand upright on its steel frame, presenting the etched imagery the way a painting is presented, but in the round and catching the light as you move around it. The choice of metal is deliberate. Steel speaks to strength and endurance, echoing the resilience of Australian Indigenous culture and of stories carried down through generations.

The Story – Earth Cycles

Earth Cycles carries the teachings of Tarisse King's father, who held that everything in life moves in circles, with no true beginning and no end. Where her sister Sarrita paints this same philosophy in thick, textured paint, Tarisse works in thin, flat layers, holding close to the tonal variations within a single colour family. The result is a refined, almost graphic surface, the circles repeating across the composition with a precision so exact it reads closer to print than to brushwork.

Etched into steel, that discipline becomes even more pronounced. The repeating circular forms sit as a dense, interlocking field across the vessel's curved body, their edges sharp and consistent from the lip of the coolamon down to its point. It is the same cyclical idea her father taught her, carried now in a medium built to outlast the painting it came from.

Tarisse King is the elder sister of Sarrita King and daughter of the late William King Jungala. Born in Adelaide in 1986, she grew up in Darwin surrounded by the raw landscapes that fuel her art. She moved to Adelaide at 16 to begin painting, combining traditional Aboriginal techniques with her own contemporary vision. Now living in New Zealand as a mother of five, she feels the strongest connection between past and future — her art illustrating ancient culture with contemporary hopefulness.