Ömie Artists Inc. is a cooperative of Ömie women barkcloth painters from Oro Province in south eastern Papua New Guinea. Barkcloth is the traditional textile of the Ömie tribe. Women wear nioge (skirts) while men wear givai (loincloths). Barkcloth serves important purposes in marriage, funerary and initiation ceremonies as well as being an integral part of everyday life. Ömie barkcloths are still worn today by men, women and children during traditional ceremonies which can involve feasting and spectacular performances of singing, dancing and kundu-drumming. Barkcloth is so important to the Ömie that one of the key events in their creation story details how the first woman, Suja, beat the first barkcloth. Nioge have been produced by Ömie women for gallery exhibitions since the cooperative was founded in 2004.

Women prepare the barkcloth by harvesting the inner layer of bark (the phloem) of rainforest trees which they rinse and dry and then fold and pound repetitiously on flat stones until a strong, fibrous sheet of cloth is produced. The cloth is then left to cure in the sun. Red, yellow, green and black natural pigments are created from fruits, ferns, leaves and charcoal. Ancient clan designs are painted in freehand onto the cloth or the cloth is dyed in river mud and the designs are appliquéd. Common painting implements include strong grasses, fashioned wooden sticks and frayed betelnut husks.

Artists inherit clan designs as young women by birthright or marriage from their mothers, grandmothers and mother-in-laws, and in some instances from their fathers and husbands. Most designs are generations old but some elderly artists, usually Chiefs, are free to paint their uehorëro (wisdom), creating new designs. The Ömie’s female Chief system is primarily based upon a woman’s barkcloth painting talents and the cultural knowledge she attains over a lifetime. All painting designs originate or are derived from traditional Ömie culture and the natural environment, maintaining and communicating artists’ deep connection to their ancestors and country. Ömie territory’s lush rainforests, wild rivers, fauna, elemental phenomena and sacred creation sites such as the volcano Huvaimo and Mount Obo provide a plethora of subjects from which artists continue to draw inspiration for their painting designs. Certain designs serve the important purpose of upholding jagor’e, customary Ömie law, passing on essential knowledge such as taboos and educating the next generation about how to protect and preserve sacred sites.

In 1951 Huvaimo erupted which correlated with the coming of the first missionaries who banned the ancient initiation rite known as the ujawé that involved tattooing clan insignia (sor’e) onto the skin. The Dahorurajé clan Chiefs Warrimou and Nogi believed the eruption was a warning from their ancestors’ spirits that reside on Huvaimo – a warning that the old ways were being lost and that they must turn away from the outsiders and hold onto their traditional culture. In order to appease the ancestors, the Chiefs spread the word throughout the tribe, encouraging the women to paint both men and women’s tattoo designs onto the barkcloth. And so triumphantly, the Ömie have managed to preserve their tattoo designs through the women’s strong barkcloth painting tradition.

Ömie Artists is fully owned and governed by Ömie people. Five Art Centres service artists across twelve villages and each of the centres play a vital role by ensuring that the ancient tradition of barkcloth painting as well as traditional culture remain strong and by providing economic returns to their artists. Income generated from sales allows artists and their families access to essential services such as hospitals and secondary schools, and necessities such as medicine, clothes and tools for building houses, hunting and subsistence farming that are otherwise unavailable to them in their remote homelands. Ömie Artists’ Manager works closely with a Committee of Art Centre Coordinators to facilitate sustainable production and ethical sales of artists’ works and to protect the rights of the artists. The Manager and Committee also work in close consultation with Chiefs and elders to ensure that traditional clan copyright laws are upheld and cultural information is verified before distribution. Barkcloth artworks are catalogued and then exhibited internationally in art galleries where, upon sale, a Certificate of Authenticity which provides detailed information about the artwork designs and/or story, and an Artist Biography accompanies each work.

Since the first exhibition in 2006 the barkcloth art of the Ömie women has been highly celebrated, culminating in the National Gallery of Victoria’s landmark exhibition Wisdom of the Mountain: Art of the Ömie in 2009. Artists have also been included in major exhibitions internationally such as 17th Biennale of Sydney at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010; Paperskin: The Art of Tapa Cloth at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in 2010; Second Skins: Painted Barkcloth from New Guinea and Central Africa at the Fowler Museum at UCLA in 2012; Under the Volcano: Art of Ömie from Papua New Guinea, Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, Germany in 2015; and Ömie Barkcloth: Pathways of Nioge, Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney, Australia in 2023. Significant collections of Ömie art are held in major public and private collections.

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