Janie Petyarre Morgan
47 1/4 x 59 in
Using a series of intricate dots of varying sizes in circular patterns Janie expresses the cultural importance of the fruits and flowers of her traditional dreaming story “ Bush Orange” or “Wild Orange”. Bush Orange is known in Alyawarre as ‘akarley’. Once a staple food for the Aboriginal people of this area and found in abundance across the landscape, over grazing by cattle and other livestock have reduced its numbers considerably. The plant is more related to the caper plant than the orange tree. The fruit grows on a shrub about 3.5m high with weeping foliage and produces large white flowers recognisable by their long prominent ridges. The fragrant small fruit hangs on long stalks and is green when unripe turning yellow or reddish in maturity. The fruit has a sweet flavour and is consumed raw with the tough outer skin discarded.