Woven at the ATW in 2010, Ngaargooroon was designed by celebrated artist and elder Patrick Mung Mung from the Warmun Community in the East Kimberely.

The seventh Embassy tapestry – a collection designed by Indigenous artists, and loaned to Australian Embassies and High Commissions around the world.

Mung Mung’s work is deeply influenced by his rich knowledge of country, family, and cultural memory. Through painting with natural pigments on canvas, Mung Mung continues the preservation of colour knowledge within his community. Mung Mung visited the Workshop in 2010 to discuss the interpretation with the weaving team. The weavers had completed a number of sample pieces and colour strips at this time, and Mung Mung bought colour strip samples, to supplement palette information from the painting.

Mung Mung explained to the weavers that the importance of the white dots (created with Titanium Oxide) was to brighten the surface and make the other colours come alive. He said that all the colours in the painting are made from rock pigments, crushed and heated to give the colour a rich density. The sand like residue of the rock gives texture to the surface of the painting. Rocks taken from the diamond mining area are transported to the Warmun art centre for the artists to create paint. The artists consider these paintings to be a way to re-claim a small piece of their land, as the rocks used for the colours are taken from land that is no longer recognized as belonging to the indigenous peoples of the area.

The simplicity of the design belies the complex mark-making information that is within the broad planes of colour. The weavers attempted to include enough of this painterly information to convey the sense of texture and movement within the design, while not overwhelming the open rhythm of the flat plains of colour.

Ngaargooroon was commissioned by the Tapestry Foundation of Australia, and supported by the Hazel Dorothy McMahon Peat Charitable Trust.

Mung Mung started painting in 1991 and was instrumental in establishing the artist-and-community-owned art centre at Warmun in 1998. He is a current member of the Warmun Art Centre Committee.