The Seven Sisters

MARGARET Dagg is a proud member of the Pitjantjatjara people, and still lives in Ernabella, in the very north of South Australia where she has carved a reputation as a Batik artist.

This skill she learned when very young after some of the women of the community travelled to Indonesia to study the art in the early 1970s.

Her batik has been collected by the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Here her Seven Sisters rendition is a striking earth-bound dot composition with the floor of the land resembling a camouflage pattern. Look closely and you will see off to the side the grandfather keeping watch as the Sisters themselves sit together with the eldest likely in the middle.