Lady and the Bunyip

This has been an ongoing series which started in 2012 and has been added to over the years. Most but not all, of the tapestries have been exhibited in various group exhibitions. The starting point for this series was a group exhibition that the British Tapestry Group was holding in Scotland for which I wove the first 3 tapestries.

Tapestry weavers were invited to look at old tapestries, be inspired and weave their own interpretation of the original tapestry. I kept returning to the suite of tapestries called the Lady and the Unicorn – my version being the Lady and the Bunyip, the mythical Bunyip swapped for the mythical Unicorn. The following was my ‘tongue-in-cheek’ artist statement.

The Lady and the Bunyip

The Lady and the Unicorn is a very well know series of tapestries worldwide. Here in Australia, there is a fabled little-known tapestry ‘the Lady and the Bunyip’. Recently some fragments have become into circulation, little is known about the history of these pieces, but there are strong links to the famous series that reside in the Musse de Cluny in Paris. As in The Lady and the Unicorn, the Australian fragments have a red background, animals real and imagined, and mille-fleur.

These Australian fragments have been studied and the flora and fauna have mostly been identified to habituate the area of south-eastern Australia, and in most cases specific to the Merri Merri Creek corridor which starts northwest of and flows into Melbourne, eventually joining up with the Yarra River. The possum is especially common in suburban gardens in Melbourne.

The Unicorn is a mythical creature, as is the Bunyip, which comes from Aboriginal mythology (said to lurk in waterholes, swamps, creeks and billabongs). This creature has been rumoured to be seen by many people and descriptions vary greatly, sadly no tapestry fragment has yet been found with a representation of this creature. Other creatures represented in these tapestry fragments are, the Macropus gigantous, (eastern grey kangaroo) Cacatua galerita (sulphur-crested cockatoo) and Pseudocheirus peregrines (common ringtail possum.) The red background in the fragments is a shade that relates to the red dust of the deserts of outback Australia. There is also sparseness and sense of space in the placement of the ‘mille-fleur’ that reflects the dry flatness of the landscape. The plants include Eucalyptus caesia (silver princess), tagells bluebell, golden billy buttons, chocolate lily, basalt daisy, spiny-headed matrush and swampweed.