Week 8: Contemporary Urban Indigenous Art

"Everything a family can be proud of and everything a family can be ashamed of can be shown on gallery walls."

 

The Boomalli artist collective started in 1984 in NSW. It consisted of Urban Aboriginal artists who were frustrated by the refusal of galleries and cultural institutions. This is said to be the beginning of Urban Aboriginal artists.

 

 



Richard Bell is a Political Artist. His work has been described as smart and poetic as he uses humour and blatant honesty to address issues such as deaths in custody and alcoholism etc. Richard Bell won the 2004 Telstra Award however he created controversy after wearing a shirt with the text 'White girls can't hump'. He also works in film which features his persona 'Richie'.

      

'Bells Theorem' 2002

'Life On a Mission' 2009 

 

'The Peckin Order' 2007

Vernon Ah Kee is an artist who has focused on drawings and portraits of his family members and ancestors. He has been known to draw on the back of surfboards addressing surf culture and Indigenous culture. His work is deceptively simple however he works in layers and there are long back stories behind his works. His work 'Not an Animal or a Plant' is in response to the introduction of the referendum in 1967.

'Not an Animal or a Plant'

 

Tony Albert was born in 1981. The particular image below is his take on addressing how young Indigenous Australians have taken on and embraced African American culture. This is due to the similarities between the struggles throughout history the two cultures have faced.

Gordon Hookey is an Urban Indigenous artist who focuses mainly in the practice of painting. He is known for his works have a child like style which incorporates his common use of incorrect spelling and wording. He addresses issues with politics in sport and the problems with literacy and numeracy education in Aboriginal culture.

"The Black C"

Laurie Nilsen trained as an illustrator and designer however he also works in sculpture. The graphic artist grew up on a farm in the bush with Emu's as pets and would often see them killed and hanging on barb wire fences on his land. He has created a poetic piece. The thing that killed the animal he loves has been used to make the thing he loves.

"Goolburris on the Bungil Creek" 2007

 

The graphic artist also created a piece in response to Pauline Hanson's comments about fishing rights. The politics behind the work give the work a whole new dimension.

"Baited" 2010

 

Lin Onus is a very well known and successful Urban artist. His work featuring the fruit bats comments on the history of Australia's country and culture sitting in your backyard. He has combined an iconic Australian household item with Indigenous designs.

"Fruits Bats" 1991

Jason Wing is part Indigenous Australian and part Chinese. He does a lot of Political pieces and works that feature drug abuse. The image below is a similar response to the concept first created by Richard Bell addressing stereotypes in society.

Jason Wing

Reko Rennie is known for his graffiti style work on iconic Australian images and animals.

"(AB)ORIGINAL" 2010

Mervyn Bishop was the first Aboriginal press photographer. He is was born in NSW. This image is about land rights and shows PM Gough Whitlam pouring soil into the hands of traditional land owner Vincent Lingiari in 1975.

Rick Maynard was born in Tasmania in 1953. He is a self taught photographer after experience as a dark room technitian. He took the photo below in a South Australian prison. It relates to the number of deaths and suicides in custody of Indigenous Australians. This image is particularly moving because of the relationship Maynard creates with his subject. Despite the confronting scars on the subjects arms, the position of the arms implies a sense of surrender and hopelessness.

 

"I've let my frustrations go, and I wonder about the others, will they let their frustrations out here or release them on the community? I often wonder, with the experience I have of frequently visiting this place, how different I will be when I get released from prison."

 

Week 7: Styles

Week 7 focused on understanding and familiarising ourselves with the various styles in Indigenous art, culture and design. For one to enable appreciation for this genre, it is vital to first understand its diversity. This was done so by focusing on 5 different styles from various areas in Australia. Beginning with...



 

 

The Desert:

Central, Western and Southern Desert

The Desert was the home for the beginnings of the Papunya dot movement in 1971. It was the birthplace for the one of the most historic moments in Indigenous art.

 

It is an area with are which focuses on tradition orientated communities with artworks based on traditional designs but also maintaining a status as contemporary art. The art from these areas is created where language and culture are still strong and where ceremony is still practiced. Classical desert art takes many forms. These include decorated weapons to personal adornments, sacred and secret incised boards and stones (tjuringa), rock engravings and paintings, and the art of body painting, sand drawings, ceremonial constructions and ground paintings. The artwork from these areas of Australia celebrate the sacred nature of 'place'.

 

The iconography of desert is a different language distinct from that of Arnhem Land. Its characteristic designs and icons include those denoting place or site, and those indicating paths or movement. Concentric circles may indicate a site, a camp, a waterhole or a fire. In ceremony, the concentric circle provides the means for the ancestral power which lies within the earth to surface and go back into the ground. Meandering and straight lines may indicate lightning or water courses, or they may describe the paths of ancestors and supernatural beings. Tracks of animals and humans are also part of the lexicon of desert imagery. U shapes usually represent settled people or breasts, while arcs may be boomerangs or wind-breaks, and short straight lines or bars are often spears and digging sticks. Fields of dots can indicate sparks, fire, burnt ground, smoke, clouds, rain, and other phenomena.

 

It features a full European colour palette and the use of Acrylic on board and also acrylic on canvas. It is unique in that it uses materials of Western European art to represent cosmology of the people of the Western desert in a finely structured and balanced way.

Clifford Possum 'Men's Spider Initiation'

 

 

The Kimberley Region:

The east Kimberley region inhabits the community of the Warnum people. The paintings by artists from Warnum display some  similar elements of the art of the desert, in particular the use of concentric designs such as circles to signify specific sites, lines of dots to describe shapes, and a planar view of the landscape. The shapes in these works relate to a story and are often bordered with white dots. Works produced in this area can be identified by the use of blocks of colour and its limited palette of natural earth pigments as opposed to desert art which uses a full range of colour. Warnum artists dig the colour out of the earth which reiterates their connection with the environment  in which they are being creative and its importance to the practice of creating the art. Warnum artists, however, the emphasis is on the depiction of the features of the environment created by the ancestors, rather than on the narration of ancestral events, as in desert painting. Each painting has a different story for the artist and their family. It is also home to a variety of styles of art within the region.

Warnum School

 

Arnhem Land:

Arnhem Land is a place where Aboriginal language and culture is still strong. The works from this area feature many stylistic differences. In many paintings there is cross hatching in the background. Every family has their own style of cross hatching and this element of the image creates another dimension of language in itself. The Arnhem Land people create many of their works on bark unlike those in the desert which are ground paintings. In 1963, North East Arnhem Land people used art as a means of expressing to the world the nature of their attachment to the land; bark paintings were submitted as evidence of legal title to their land to the Australian Government in constitutional procedures concerning Aboriginal land rights. It was not until 1976, however that land rights legislation in any form was finally enacted in the Northern Territory.

The Arnhem people use natural pigments and ochres from the earth including a range of red and yellow ochres, white from kaolin or pipeclay, and black which is usually obtained from charcoal. The sites at which ochres are quarried are often of important ritual and political significance. Colours and the substances from which they are made are symbolic in themselves. White clay is used in mourning; red ochre is associated with the blood ancestor- beings who now reside in the earth. These works have a contemporary feel and rhythm, although most traditional forms, ground paintings for example, continue to be largely restricted to ceremonial use, others, such as painting on bark and wood sculpture readily fulfil ritual functions and are made for the public domain as well. Arnhem Land is renowned for bark painting, sculptures and weaving, with a variation in emphasis and styles across the region. In general the paintings of the west tend towards the figurative, and as one moves east, geometric designs become more prominent.

David Malangi

 

Arnhem Land art is also famous for its use of X-ray vision. The artists paint using a style which allows the viewer to see the internal skeleton of its subject, for example an animal. It is estimated that this element was introduced in the past 3,000 years due to the changes in climate and sea level.

The Arnhem Land region is also rich in other forms of art including painted wood sculpture and dyed woven natural fibres which often incorporate feathers. Bark is a perishable material and the antiquity of the tradition of bark painting is difficult to establish. The practice of painting on large sheets of bark used for the walls of shelters was seen when the Europeans first arrived, and the earliest recorded bark paintings were collected on Essington Island between 1838 and 1878. Bark is peeled from the trunks of stringy bark trees during the wet season when the sap is rising and the bark is easy to remove. The curved sheet of bark is cured and made pliable, then flattened under weights for a few days while it dries. Next, the rough outer layer is removed and the inner surface rubbed smooth in readiness for the painting.

A range of brushes are made from a variety of fibres and sticks, the ends of which are either frayed by chewing or have hairs or feathers attached. Broad areas of the background colour are often blocked in using the hands. A particularly fine brush made of several long hairs attached to a stick (called marwat, meaning ‘hair’ in eastern Arnhem land) is used to paint intricate cross hatched patterns. In recent years commercially available brushes have been used, these are often modified to suit the specific needs of the artist.

As elsewhere in Aboriginal Australia, the process of making art was often more important than the finished product

 

Tiwi Islands:

Tiwi Graphic Art is bold and colourful. The ochres used are more friable than those found in Arnhem Land, and are therefore crushed rather than ground in the preparation of the paint. Traditionally, brushes are made of frayed bark or feathers, and now European brushes are also used. The distinctive ‘pwata’ comb as well as a short cylindrical stick supply the dots however dots from the Tiwi Islands are not the same as those from the Western Desert areas. Tiwi artists do their dots in lines. The use of brushes amongst Tiwi artists also enables them to apply elements of cross hatching to their works although due to the tools that are used, Tiwi and Arnhem land cross hatching can be told apart by the thickness of the lines. Arnhem Land cross hatching is done with a single hair where as Tiwi cross hatching involves thicker lines. While the traditional forms of art persist in contemporary times, since 1968 Tiwi artists have been at the fore in innovation, using new techniques and materials such a vehicles for their rich pictorial heritage. The repertoire of Tiwi art have been expanded to include screen printed cloth, batik, ceramics, printmaking and painting on paper as well as canvas.

John Baptist Apuatimi

 

Close up of Cross Hatching

 

Timothy Cook

 

 Torres Strait Islands:

Artists and their works from the Torres Strait have a different identity of their own again. Artists such as Ken Thaiday have given Torres Strait artwork a new contemporary voice with works such as his sculptural piece Bamboo Hammerhead Shark Headdress and his series of the Dance machines.

 

Week 6: Discovery

This lecture was focused on 'discovery' post invasion. Particularly that of the non Indigenous discovery of Indigenous art, culture and design.

Rock art Djulirri - North Western Arnum Land

These images were discovered recently and have been dated to 15,000-50 years ago. The rock art features highly detailed images of ships and liners. Anthropologists have been able to analyse the drawings and then search through records to find the exact models that have been drawn on the rocks. This is an important example of cross cultural contact.

"Buckley ran away from the ship" 1880's

Tommy McRae was born in the 1830's. He spent his early years living an undisturbed traditional life with no contact from settlers in an area which had not been colonised. He painted scenes of traditional life and the relationship with the coming of settlers and settler activities. The image above tells the story of William Buckely who McCrae remembers as a boy. William Buckley was a convict who escaped in 1803. He lived for more than 30 yrs with the Wutawong people near Port Phillip Bay.

William Barak was born and lived in around 1824. His father was a respected law man. He was educated at an early settler school which made him Fluent across both cultures. He was a campaigner for the rights of Indigenous communities. Most of his image are of ceremonies and traditional life.

Mickey of Ulladulla lived on the Southern Coast of New South Wales. He was employed by Settlers as a fisherman. He included himself in many of his images.

 

"Ceremony"

 

Charlie Flannigan was born in 1865 on the Richmond Downs Homestead. He was rumoured to be a champion jockey until 1892 charged with Murder. He started to draw in Jail and then was hanged in 1893.There was an exhibition in Adelaide of his works which Attracted attention. He drew stories of the injustices towards Aboriginal people but also Aboriginal people adapting drawing style.

"Richmond Downs Homestead" 1893

 

 

The following images were drawn by a young boy only known as Oscar who was taken to work on a station near the border of Queensland and Northern Territory. His drawings are of observations of European people around him.

"White Lovers Some Jealousy"

"Trying to catch cranky bill"

"Two Mormos" Artist Unknown

Baldwin Spencer was an Antropologist who went on an expidition through south western Arnhem land in 1912 and came back with 38 bark paintings. They were taken from the roofs of wet season huts. They were paintings for pleasure and ceremonial purposes. The museum took such a strong interest in these works that they later comissioned the communities for more. They attracted strong interest both in Australia and overseas, even as far as Paris. Baldwin Spencers attraction to these were Anthrpological but he later developed an appreciation for them as works of art.

 

During the time of these discoveries, artists such as Margaret Preston, a non indigenous artist, took interest in the style of Indigenous art and design. She promoted  the idea that Indigenous art had a uniquely Australian style and heritage and was evidence of ancient Australian identity. Even in the 1920's she was excited by the potential of these designs and what it meant for artistic expression.

'Aboriginal Design with Sturts Pea' 1943

It is hard to say what people thought of these images at the time they were discovered and the reasons why they created so much attraction. The reasons are both controversial and mixed. The works were seen and promoted as something that came from pre history. The idea that these images were primative made viewers feel that they were even more civilised as Aboriginal cultures were the oldest civilisation on earth where as Australia was the youngest colonisation.

Samson & Delilah

 

 

http://samsonanddelilah.com.au/

 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/film/australian-film-is-alive-and-kicking-goals/2009/02/23/1235237555141.html

 

http://www.samsonanddelilah.com.au/uploads/melbourneairport.pdf

 

 

This film was extremely confronting for me. I had never watched anything which was so brutally honest but yet compassionate and tender at the same time. There are many stereotypes in society about the issue of substance abuse in Indigenous communities however this movie showed a side which I had not considered before. The lack of dialogue in the film was also powerful as it then relied on the perfomance of the actors to convey all the things not being said. Samson and Delilah is an amazing film which I feel all Australians should be proud of. I'm glad I spent the time to track it down and watch it because I feel like I have  a new understanding and respect for young people living among these communities.

Week 5: Troy-Anthony Bayliss

Troy-Anthony Baylis was born in1976 with Irish and Aboriginal heritage and is a descendant of the Jawoyn people from Australia’s Northern Territory. Troy-Anthony Baylis is a visual artist, performer and social activist. In his visual arts practice, the artist employs strategies of narration that have been developed in the intercourse between traditional Aboriginal art and Western art of the first half of the 20th century. Troy is part of a larger contemporary movement, Indigenous and Queer, building on art, film and literary explorations of Indigenous culture that are evolving across Australia. The artist has 3 "performing bodies" which he uses in both his art work and performances. He adopted the term "performing bodies" from Judith Butler because he says they help him convey emotion in ways possibly unavailable to him if he were in his own skin. His three persona's include Kaboobie, Ricky Mortus and Barbara Cartland. Kaboobie is a die hard Kylie Minogue fan who mostly performs Tina Turner. Bayliss himself has a huge Kylie Minogue collection which he sometimes exhibits. Ricky Mortus is a play on both the term rigamortis and Ricky Martin. This character is more male and he uses this to articulate death. Finally there is Barbara Cartland who is the world's largest selling romance novelist. These persona's are important due to the influence they have on the artists work.

The painting below depicts Kaboobie lying in a desert offering her body as 2 shelters. It is part of a series called "Ricky Mortus Southern Death" which was Bayliss' first show at Tandanya in Adelaide 12 years ago.

'Nude Kaboobie Too Humpy'

'Four Familiars'

The image above, also from the Ricky series, features dogs inspired by drawings from early explorers who depicted dingoes in this way.

Bayliss describes the following works as "emotional landscapes". They are painting in oil onto canvas reaching lengths of 2 metres tall. He says in these images he is imagining his country and that these paintings are like love letters with the one on the left having a full stop at the end. He also described it as "works which blow air kisses at modernity". The image on the right was painted with white out.

Below is a work which features the detail of 8 sunsets which are all knitted. The piece stands 4 metres tall. It also relates to the Sunset print series produced by Andy Warhol in 1972. One reviewer stated that 'his choice of material guarantees the softness and his choice of colours creates equally radiating images. The knitting process, however, creates a surface structure that Bayliss highlights, emphasising it by incorporating surface pattern.'

While Bayliss was travelling Berlin and Germany he became fascinated with breaking the assumption that Aboriginal artwork should be made and shown in the country.By doing this he challenges the meaning of a work when it is placed in a different environment. The individual sunsets wrapped around trees also represent the care of trees and even the debarking process carried out by Aborigines.

These are Bayliss' sunsets back into painting. Others were emotional landscapes, these are emotional sunsets. There are16 in the series.

The knitted poles are depictions of Aboriginal artefact's such as burial pole which are used to articulate an absence and/or a death. They are knitted on one continuous row on round needles. The artist sometimes exhibits these individually and sometimes in a series. There are 10 altogether. Bayliss did explain that when he was creating these pieces that concern was voiced by associates and other Indigenous artists saying that it might be wrong to reproduce the burial poles. However he felt that this was only an interpretation and not a reproduction of a burial pole.

 

Bayliss' blue poles can be referenced to Jackson Pollocks blue poles. These poles were temporarily displayed outside Government House as a monument to colonisation. They are made of electrical wire coated in plastic.

These condom, beanie look-a-likes are a play on words by Barnard Arkee who produced the artwork 'not an animal or a plant'. Bayliss stitched onto his works 'am an animal am a plant' using circular needles. The image beside it is another series in which he stitched the lyrics to the Annie musical hit "The Sun will come out tomorrow". Bayliss felt that this was a song about surviving oppression which he had personal experiences with throughout his life.

 

"First Queer is an art object I constructed using multiple textile processes. The body of this sculptural work has been knitted with acrylic wool, afterwards the surface has been embroidered with text using the same material as the knitting. Buttons were sewn on with the cotton thread using the same acrylic material. I constructed a queen sized pom-pom and attached it to the tip of the body also sewn on with cotton.'

I love Troy Anthony Baylis. I think he is an extremely innovative and creative Contemporary artist. This clip shows all of this.

Week 4: Nici Cumpston

 

Nici Cumpston is an artist of Aboriginal, Afghan, English and Irish descent and draws strength from her ancestry when creating her artworks. The strong connection with her Indigenous forebears and their culture has instilled a great spirituality into her work.

 

Nici says "Much of my work is photographic but I create black and white images and then hand colour them with water colours and pencils. Currently I am working on large scale pieces that I create on film, and then have scanned and printed digitally onto canvas.Being involved in exhibitions nationally, as well as locally is important for me to maintain an active arts practice. Last year I was honoured to be one of 10 finalists from a national pool of emerging Indigenous artists in the inaugural Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award held at the Queensland Art Gallery. My great desire is to see more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people attending university and I am especially passionate about getting students interested in UniSA’s visual arts program."

 

Nici has a strong background in Photography, working once for the Police force developing photos from forensic evidence. She has also stated that her fathers work as a Radiographer, had a strong influence on her interest in photography as she was always exposed to dark rooms and the process of developing film.

 

2011: "Having-Been-There"

In 2011 Cumpston created the series "Having-Been-There" which featured the Barkindji and Paakantji Country.

'Scar Tree, Fowler's Creek'
2011, print on canvas, hand coloured with pencil and water colour, 100x177cm

The artist says she spent a lot of time looking, listening, thinking, feeling and trying to get a sense of what was left as evidence of Aboriginal occupation on these sites. She travelled over 30 km over which she found shards of rock left over from stone making tool practices and fossils with fish scales imprinted into the rock. During this time she sensed like she shouldn't be there alone. This intuition was correct. She later found out from one of the elders of the land that it was a mans sight where hunting and ceremonies would have taken place.

'Fossil Waterhole'
2011, print on canvas, hand coloured with pencil and watercolour, 65x177cm

 

'Settlement View'
2011, print on canvas, hand coloured with synthetic polymer paint, 65x177cm

 

Nici Cumpston uses reference photographs to help her transcend back to the environment and create the feeling she experienced when there. However she doesn't hand colour to the exact colours that she saw. She likes to make an emphasis on the way the light changed during the time she spent on the land. These works are 1x2 metres in scale so the colouring process can be time consuming but one that she enjoys and finds rewarding.

'Shelter I & II' Quartzite Ridge
2011, print on canvas, hand coloured with synthetic polymer paint, 98x98cm

Above is an image of a work which original was born out of an accident where the image was printed the wrong way around. It is of a rock shelter on top of a ridge. Cumpston found it challenging photographing this because she didn't feel it gave a sense of shelter and protection against the elements. However when it was printed back to front and then layed beside its mirror image she felt this was achieved.

2007-2012: "Attesting"

This series was created in response to the Federal Government which stopped the flow of fresh water into Lake Bonney in 2007. The lake became stagnant and putrid and the water dramatically receded and salinity levels rose. Cumpston created these works because she felt it was important to document the event and raise awareness.

'Nookamka Lake'
2008-11, inkjet print on canvas, hand coloured with pencil and watercolour

Cumpston says that it was a local turtle breeder took her around and showed her amazing sights. He showed her a Ring Tree with branches were joined together which were symbolic for different clans travelling through as a sign for a place of abundance. It signified that there was fresh fish and water in that area. She also found spears, spear heads and fire sticks. Cumpston is passionate about the cultural heritage protection of this sight. She is also fighting to have it listed as significant place which needs a proper archaeological search conducted.

'Cultural Landscape II'
2008, inkjet print on canvas, 65x177cm

 

'Tree Stumps'
2008-10, inkjet print on canvas, hand coloured with pencil and watercolour

 

2005: Eckert's Creek

In 2005 Cumpston created a commission piece for the Dame Roma-Commonwealth Law Court in Adelaide. It featured a flooded gum at Katarapko Creek. This was the first time the artist had shifted from paper to canvas. The brief was that they didn't want a piece with any dead trees because they wanted the work to be uplifting due to the environment it would be displayed in.

Below is a series of images which show the process involved in creating the work. First is a black and white image, followed by the original colour image and then the final reworked and hand coloured piece.

Cumpston said she felt the space was panoramic. So when she took the images she wanted to create a piece which was more interactive which led her to alter the horizon line and display the image over several panels vertically. She then went over the image with transparent watercolour paints to allow the original image to show and then highlighted with pencils.

2004-2006: "Holy Holy Holy"
Curated by Vivonne Thwaites
Flinders University Art Museum
National Tour

'Abandoned'
2004

'Abandoned' was Nici Cumpston's interpretation of her own personal interaction with Christianity. The image is of a church  which she saw during her travels between Echuka and Swan Hill. This abandoned old church resonated with her because of personal experiences with religion which have been mixed. She also says she feels most comfortable and spiritual with her country. Nici believes that her spirituality comes from learning from the community and from her elders and that where this takes place is also an important part of her culture which is why it is so frequently the main setting for her works.