Born in 1948 in the Daly River region of the Northern Territory, Regina Pilawuk Wilson is a Ngan’gikurrungurr artist celebrated for her intricate weaving and acrylic paintings that draw on traditional fibre art techniques. A co-founder of the Peppimenarti community and Cultural Director of Durrmu Arts Aboriginal Corporation, Wilson also won the General Painting Award at the 2003 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for Syaw (Fishnet). Recently, Wilson has had a room named in her honour in the newly launched Australian Embassy in Washington DC. Wilson’s cultural authority is widely recognised nationally and internationally, positioning her among the most important First Nations figures currently practicing.

Wupun (Sun Mat) reimagines the traditional sun mats woven by the women of Peppimenarti from Yerrgi (Pandanus) and Merrepen (Sand Palm). Using finely layered acrylic lines, she recreates their radiating structure and embeds her personal stitch passed down through her family as a cultural signature. Concentric ripples and shifting between earthy reds, ochres, yellows, and whites evoke the meditative rhythm of weaving. Originally a master weaver, Wilson turned to painting in the early 2000s to preserve and evolve traditional practices, translating cultural knowledge into contemporary abstraction. Wilson’s works transform everyday woven objects into expansive optical compositions grounded in place, memory, and identity.

Regina’s paintings and weavings have been exhibited in major national and international exhibitions, including Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, 2006), Floating Life (QAGOMA, 2009), The Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009), Ancestral Modern (Seattle Art Museum, 2012), String Theory (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2013), Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia (Harvard Art Museums, 2016), Marking the Infinite (touring USA & Canada, 2016-19), The TarraWarra Biennale (2023), and Woven Histories (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2025).