Sihot’e Nioge reveals the centrality of nioge, painted, and sihot’e, appliquéd, beaten bark cloths in Omie culture and life from the first Omie man and woman who arrived on the earth until today. Working from the remote mountain rainforests of Oro Province, not so far from Kokoda, Papua New Guinea, the Omie Tapa artists continue to develop the most colourful and compositionally diverse, bark cloth art in the Pacific region, using all natural products from their vast, rainforest homelands.
Image: IIma Ugiobari, Gome (Orchid) (detail) 2018, natural plant and ash pigments on beaten bark cloth. Courtesy of the artist. Omie Tapa Artists PNG and Baboa Gallery, Brisbane.
