Image: Esmae Bowen × Elise Baglot Buthaya (Bush Lady apples) top and skirt 2019. Silk organza and cotton. Bendigo Art Gallery Collection, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist, Hope Vale Arts and Culture Centre and Bendigo Art Gallery.
This work is a silk organza skirt and cotton top displayed on a mannequin and measures 1.6 metres high by 75 centimetres wide and has a depth of 71 centimetres. It is placed on a plinth, 15 centimetres from the floor. The garment is on loan from the Bendigo Art Gallery Collection for Gulbuuygu. Behind the garment is a wallpaper with a design by fellow Hope Vale artist, Dora Deemal, Babatha (Gumnuts) 2016. Dora is now deceased. Her family have provided permission for her artwork and name to be incorporated into the exhibition in this way to honour her contribution to the Hope Vale and QUT Fashion collaboration.
The top is boxy in style with a high neckline and sleeves that hang looslely off the manequin’s torso and at a length that sits just past the elbow when worn. The top is cotton with a light lime green background. A bold graphic print covers the top thickly outlined in black of bush lady apples found in the Hope Vale area. The apples gather together in a bunch, their skin is coloured blue and at their base the apples are coloured orange with black spots. Each bunch sits out from a thick black branch at the centre and spreads out upon large leaves coloured a soft yellow, with markings for the veins upon each leaf made in black.
A thick elasticated black band creates the waist of the skirt below which unfurls and billows out slightly creating volume. The skirt is a deep blue and the bush lady apples design is continued here and covers the entire surface of the skirt. It is textural with the design painted directly on top of the diaphonous silk organza. The design here is also thickly outlined in black but the skin of the apple is orange and the base coloured dark brown with the same spotted markings as included in the cotton top. The leaves are coloured green highlighting the contrast of the leaves against the deep blue background upon which they are painted.
Esmae Bowen (nee Ford) was born in Hope Vale in 1956. She is a long-standing member of the Hope Vale community, highlighting a recent historical relocation from her ancestral region. Esmae's clan group is Gugu Thaypan, and her language is Guugu Yimithirr. Her totem is Waandarr (White Cockatoo). Esmae finds inspiration in the shapes and colours of her environment and has a deep love for plants.