THE ABORIGINAL ART HOUSE - AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL FINE ART

A short history of Central Desert Aboriginal art The art of the indigenous people of Australia is one of the oldest art forms in the world. Examples of rock art have been discovered in northern Australian caves which are estimated to be around 50 000 years old. In many parts of the country, especially in the Kimberley region, in Arnhem Land and in the centre of Australia historical artwork has been found. A wide range of media including bark paintings, wood and stone sculpture, sand drawings, painting on leaves, human bodies and ceremonial clothing are involved in the genre of Aboriginal art. Art has always been an integral part of the indigenous societies in Australia and is closely linked to the Jukurrpa, i.e. the Dreamtime or Creation time. The terms Jukurrpa or Tjukurrpa are only used in central Australia, different terms are used in other regions of the country. They denote a complex living philosophy, the foundation of Aboriginal law and culture, influencing and determining all aspects of traditional life. With no written language the Australian indigenous people have held onto a complex culture through an extensive network of oral histories that hold encyclopaedic knowledge and which are passed down through the family network. Through the act of storytelling, the dreamtime is connected to present daily life. Story telling and totem representation are included in all forms of Aboriginal artworks. Dance and music combined with the spoken word recreate the journeys of the ancestors as they travel across the landscape singing animal and plant life into being and shaping the land. In traditional Aboriginal Australia each person has one or more personal dreamings with which come certain rights and obligations to their country (land, animals, plants etc). The mythological beings, to which all Aboriginal people are ancestrally related in one way or another, are not considered as really dead but rather as at a watchful rest. For the indigenous people they still live in caves, clay-pans, water holes, rock holes and other natural features of the physical environment. Casual regard for ancient custom and law, or sacrilegious behaviour, may anger the supernatural beings in such a way that death and destruction follow. In order to placate the ancestors, sacrilege must be punished on the instant. Apart from storytelling, Central Australian art was traditionally used for ceremonies in the form of body painting, g=drawings in the sand, on bark and engravings on rock (petroglyphs). The spread of Christianity, however, destroyed much of the ceremonial life of the indigenous people. The European settlers looked upon Aboriginal drawings as rudimentary signs of life - not as artwork. The earliest signs that this artwork first became somewhat recognised outside of Indigenous circles was in the late 1800s. It was first “mused” and at a later stage recognised that Aboriginal artwork was part of an important piece of evidence demonstrating the ongoing relationship Indigenous people have with their land. Contemporary Indigenous art The beginnings of Hermannsburg and Utopia In the mid 1930’s the Australian painter Rex Batterbee / Battarbee taught the Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira western style water colour landscape painting at the Hermannsburg mission in the Northern Territory. It became a popular style, known as the Hermannsburg School. Exhibitions in Melbourne, Adelaide and other cities in Australia were highly successful with all paintings sold out. As a result of his fame and popularity with his paintings Albert Namatjira became the first Aboriginal Australian citizen. His life/work and contribution to Australian society as a whole helped instigate a long overdue change in the recognition of Indigenous people in Australia. Albert Namatjira is widely regarded as a representative of assimilation and a pioneer for Aboriginal rights. Another well known modern Australian Aboriginal artist is the late Rover Thomas. In 1991, he represented Australia in the Venice Biennale. Other now well-known artists were encouraged to paint, including Queenie McKenzie from the East Kimberley region. Rover Thomas also influenced the works of Freddy Timms and Paddy Bedford. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the work of legendary Aboriginal Artist Emily Kngwarreye became increasingly recognised and popular. Emily Kngwarreye was from the Utopia community around located on Utopia station north east of Alice Springs. She is the aunt of the famous Petyarre / Pitjara sisters, among them Kathleen, Gloria, Myrtle and Violet Petyarre and great aunt to Gracie Morton Pwerle. For most of her life Emily had been involved in craftwork. She started painting only at a later stage in her life and was recognised as a painter when she was in her 80s. Emily painted for only a few years towards the end of her life. Her styles have been considered as a mixture of traditional Aboriginal and contemporary Australian ways of painting. In the short time she worked with acrylic paints, cotton canvas and linen she changed her styles quite often. Today Emily is regarded as one of the most influential Australian Aboriginal artists of all time. A fine example of Emily’s work can be viewed at Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs. Mbantua Gallery purchased the piece entitled “The Earth’s Creation” at just over AU$1,000.000. The Papunya Art Movement / Papuny Tula In Papunya, north west of Alice Springs Geoffrey Bardon worked as a class art teacher at the Papunya / local school. He shared his interest in painting with the Aboriginal men who worked at the Papunya Aboriginal community. At first these artists painted ants and birds in realistic styles similar to the European manner. But it is said that they were not entirely satisfied with what they had painted and after discussions among the men it was decided to paint over the realistic forms, gradually substituting them by bars or flashes, decorating them with black dotting. This sparked great interest in individual painting projects. Hardboards and anything else suitable for painting on became the surface for their paintings. It was in the context of painting the now famed Papunya School Mural the whole process turned out to be like a sudden rediscovery of their artistic heritage. The men’s seriousness and enthusiasm and their determination to depict their ‘dreamings’ or ‘stories’ induced Bardon to help them, providing the artists with better suited painting materials. Slowly, stylized patterns and what we now consider traditional Aboriginal iconography emerged. Since the paintings depicted abstract signs and symbols to tell a story, (rather than realistic depictions) some form of interpretation of the artworks to potential purchasers was required. Geoffrey Bardon helped in this process as a cultural broker of sorts. He explained some of the meanings behind the paintings to the public and assisted the artists by communicating to them what most appealed to the viewers. Bardon also gave the artists advice and suggestions but was always conscious not to intrude his own opinions about colours, methods and subject matter. Among the Papunya painters were Billy Stockman, Johnny Warangkula, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, to name but a few. Several groups of men from different tribes and different homelands around Papunya came together as one painting group. They formed their own company with the name Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. Much of the Aboriginal art on display in galleries and tourists shops trace back to this style developed at Papunya. There was a growing private market for Aboriginal art in Alice Springs. The success of the Aboriginal art movement induced some profit-seeking art dealers to exploit the largely illiterate non-English speaking artists. They often felt frustrated and powerless when buyers refused to pay prices which reflected the value of the artwork or when they showed little interest in understanding the story. This was one of the reasons for the establishment of the Yuendumu movement. The Yuendumu Aboriginal settlement is located 300 km northwest of Alice Springs in the Tanami Desert and populated by people belonging to the Warlpiri language group. Its remoteness from the nearest rural township helped the Warlpiri maintain their strong social and spiritual traditions, which are the inspiration for the artistic expression of the Yuendumu community. In the early 1980s the presence of non-indigenous settlers encouraged indigenous self-determination through various initiatives. Well-meaning individuals living at Yuendumu pressed the Warlpiri to pursue activities intended to mitigate decades of oppressive colonisation and governmental neglect. Many of the artists were aware of the increasing interest in Aboriginal art and had watched the development of the art movement at Papunya from the sidelines. This resulted in the establishment of the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association (‘Warlukurlangu’). Warlukurlangu plays a vital economic role for its artists by facilitating the production of museum-quality artworks. For example, the cooperative imports the finest canvas and helps the artists travel to their exhibition openings. Being Aboriginal owned and controlled, Warlukurlangu works to achieve the optimum economic return to its artists. It is also a venue for creative activity, a place where the Jukurrpa can be recalled thus helping to maintain the traditional culture of the Warlpiri people. Through their paintings Warlpiri people of both genders were reflecting on how best to communicate Warlpiri culture and beliefs to an uninitiated audience, indigenous or not. Despite its remoteness many visitors come to Yuendumu to buy paintings and to have the opportunity to see the artists at work and make contact with Aboriginal people. Depending on the tribe or region of Australia the artists belong to there are variations in the symbolic representation of their paintings. Certain symbols retain the same meaning across regions, although the meaning of the same symbols may change within the context of the painting as a whole. Some symbols have a multiplicity of meanings. For example, circles, which are a frequently used symbol, can be depicted on their own or in clustered groups. This symbol can vary in meaning, it can denote a waterhole or spring, a series of concentric circles can mean a campfire, a digging hole or a hill. The symbol can be clarified further by the use of colour, such as blue or black circles signifying water. Like in ancient times, many paintings by Aboriginal artists are shown from an aerial view. It is a kind of map-like, bird’s-eye perspective of the desert landscape and it often tells a traditional Dreaming story, usually the story of the painter’s country. The narrative depicts the land as sung into existence by ancestral beings on their journey across the lands during creation time. The modern rendition is a reinterpretation of ceremonies and songs that mirrored the basic beliefs for thousands of years. In the distant past, the common media for such artwork were rock, sand or body painting. Today the tradition continues in the form of paintings on canvas, giving them a more permanent form. The dot painting technique of much of today’s modern Aboriginal art has become somewhat of trademark of the contemporary art movement, notably the works from Central Desert artists. In Arnhem Land and the Kakadu regions in the tropical north, the use of cross-hatching prevails and skeletons and viscera of the animals and humans portrayed are drawn inside the outline, hence the term “X-ray art” as a generic term referring to those works . From the 1970s onwards Aboriginal artwork began appearing much more readily in galleries across Australia and overseas. Today Aboriginal Art is shown alongside other forms of art in museums and galleries in Australia and overseas and is now widely considered the youngest of the art genres alongside impressionism, realism etc.