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Tag Archives: Aboriginal art

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19 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in art, photos

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Aboriginal art, Balnhdhurr, Bega Regional Gallery, Marian Webb, Plethora of postcards, printmaking, Spiral Gallery, textile art

Marian Webb

Our local libraries host regular mini-exhibitions of the work of local artists, eight pieces displayed on easels made by the men at the local Men’s Shed. Part of the deal is that the artists give a floor talk.

I don’t go out after dark often: our roads are patrolled by emus, kangaroos, cows, deer, and occasionally a man in dark clothes walking the white line on the wrong side of the road. I have no desire to hit any of them. But a quick look at Marian Webb’s work tempted me to brave the obstacles.

I wasn’t disappointed. She was an ebullient woman, hugely enthusiastic about her work which she creates using many techniques: batik, felting, hand-stitching, stamping, spinning, weaving. She creates dyes from the leaves of the swamp mahogany in her backyard, and from bark, onion skins, avocado seed and skin, and anything else that catches her fancy. Sometimes she and a friend make notes as they dye, so they can reproduce the colour, but she also enjoys the sheer serendipity of just letting it happen. She makes baskets and paper with native grasses: small rounds of handmade paper were bound into a miniature book. She collects driftwood and feathers for what could be called totem sticks; she shapes pottery. Once from the prunings of a tree she made a Madonna bustier. Her real pleasure is the third dimension.

Her house is called “Cobwebs” (“Cobwebbs”?) and her kitchen table is always overflowing with projects and materials, pushed aside if you pop in for a cup of tea. When she was weaving at a campsite near Darwin, a group of Aboriginal women came to see what she was doing and they spent the day swapping knowhow and materials – pandanus and wool.

She has thirty notebooks of ideas, but her inspiration usually begins with “What if I …?” She’s not eager to keep what she makes: the process is what matters, and it’s her form of meditation. A photographer was so taken with her work that he documents it with stunning images on archival paper, and insists she summon him before she frames anything new.

I drove home (safely) through darkness illuminated by an apricot lightning show out to sea.

 

 

 

Plethora of postcards

Each year the Spiral Gallery, an artists’ cooperative in Bega, has an exhibition open to anyone as long as their artwork is no bigger than a postcard. It attracts children, young people, artists with a disability, timid artists testing their wings, and established artists who have already had solo exhibitions. The artworks include ceramics, felting, stitching, collage, intricately folded booklets, as well as more traditional paper and paint. I spend a pleasant half hour prowling the exhibition and trying to capture its variety.

Phoebe Marley “Carried away”: Gabrielle Power “Wild life”: Diana Winter “Funnel web”: Veronica O’Leary “Australian icon 1”: Roz Bannon “Blinman”: Keith Coleman “Puffer fish”: Karyn Thompson “Scribbly gum trunk #1”: Jeffery Young “Mare and foal in Bega”: Vivienne Bowe-Wood “Wagonga mangroves”

 

Linda Lord: “Magpie and flannel flower”
Linda Lord: “Magpie and flannel flower”
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Tanya Bourke “No fixed address”
Tanya Bourke “No fixed address”
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Anneke Paijmans “Tathra firies” - 1st prize (a series of tiles commemorating the Tathra bush fires, bought by Bega Regional Gallery, proceeds to the Tanja fire brigade.)
Anneke Paijmans “Tathra firies” – 1st prize (a series of tiles commemorating the Tathra bush fires, bought by Bega Regional Gallery, proceeds to the Tanja fire brigade.)
Irene Berry “Dare to be different”
Irene Berry “Dare to be different”
Sara Anderson “Hung out to dry” - Youth 1st prize
Sara Anderson “Hung out to dry” – Youth 1st prize
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Pip Marshman “Flight”
Pip Marshman “Flight”
Melissa Gabelle “ Homage to Kandinsky”
Melissa Gabelle “ Homage to Kandinsky”

 

 

Balnhdhurr: a lasting impression

Bega Regional Gallery is hosting an amazing exhibition of prints made in the print-space dedicated to preserving Yolngu culture in Yirrkala, a remote Aboriginal community in Arnhem Land. It’s one of the most thoroughly curated exhibitions I’ve ever seen. The website provides background on the studio and its history: a video is hosted by three young printmakers who tell stories, show country and speak in language; and audio commentary on six prints gives an analysis in whitefella mode, and meaning from the culture of the artists. The prospectus gives yet more information. Then there’s a phone app with biographies of the 50 artists, including their clan and moiety; and more about the artworks, including an artist’s statement and the cultural story.

For once I did my homework, and went to see the prints with some knowledge behind me. The meticulous commentary continued on information panels in the gallery, backgrounding technique (Japanese woodblock; collograph; lithograph; etching; linocut; photographic linocut; reduction linocut) and different projects including ones involving the Seven Sisters; and the Midawarr suite.

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Artists at work in the print room

It was hard to choose from multitudes of images. My groupings are arbitrary, by technique or palette, and although cropping seemed a crime, I did it so I could showcase more prints.

“Wakun” (sea mullet): etching / “Bathi Malany” (dilly bags): screenprint / Seven sisters: lithograph

Nyapanyapa Yunupinu “Bayini” (mythical non-Aboriginal woman): etching / Nyapanyapa Yunupinu “Bukmak Mulmu” (all grass): etching / Gulumbu Yunupingu dec “Gan’yu” (star): etching / Nyapanyapa Yunupinu “Seven sisters”: lithograph

Barrupu Yunupingu dec “Djirikitj” (quail): Japanese woodblock / Ruby Djikarra Alderton “Yathiny” (jelly-like marine organism): photographic etching

A collection of self-portraits, created using digital photography, photocopying and chine-collé linocut printing, particularly caught my eye. They showed so much of the self-perception of the artists, so vibrant and positive, especially considering that they were done in workshops for that thing called “disengaged youth”. The size of the group grew from week to week, and 35 young artists produced “exceptional pieces” using a process not seen at Yirrkala before.

The printed string images paid tribute to a cultural practice documented by anthropologists who collected 192 string figures in the 1940s, the largest collection in the world of figures from one community at one time. They are a sophisticated form of what I called in my childhood cats cradles: you can watch contemporary Aboriginal women making them here.

Mulkun Wirrpanda “Biyay” (goanna): soft-ground etching

Some of the artists, such as Nyapanyapa Yunupinu, in this screenprint, “Hunting Dhawu” (hunting story) took on bright, almost psychedelic colours, a far cry from the traditional ochres.

All the prints from Yirrkala have story attached to them. This one, “Dhanbul wu Yolngu Marryun” (morning star), is a screenprint by Dundiwuy#2 Munungurr, who tells the story

Dhanbul ceremony is a very big thing in Yolngu culture. A lot of Yolngu come from all tribes to take part in bunggul (ceremonial dancing). When a person dies the family … starts to think of ways to make a Morning Star ceremony to make them feel the dead person is still living with them … Once it has been talked over with the eldest of the tribe, the djunggaya (custodian), the mother, father and the grandmother, they start to get it moving. The woman go out to get the armband vine string, … the funeral pole, the clay and the ochre rocks, and make dilly bags for the ceremony. The men go out and get the birds such as cockatoo, brolgas, heron birds and wild ducks for feathers. They all sit for about 6 or 12 months to make everything they need … The ceremony celebrates the arrival of a spirit at Burralku, the Island of the Dead.

At Burralku, the spirit people do the same kind of work as the living – like weaving dilly bags, collecting special ngatha (food) like bukawal, ganguri (yams), Barangaroo (bush potato) ; and fruits like gallura, munbi and dawu (figs). When they gather the food they sit together under the big banyan tree to share their ngatha … After they have eaten, they celebrate with singing and dancing. They have a big ceremony when they see a new spirit being welcomed to their land.

This print is an image of how Yolngu perform their bunggul for this bright Morning Star.

The story was taken directly from the app.

Participating artists

Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Marrnyula Mununggurr, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Gaymala Yunupingu, Naminapu Maymuru-White, Manunu Wunungmurra, Dundiwuy Wunungmurra, Barrupu Yunupingu, Nongirrnga Marawili, Djambawa Marawili, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Gawirrin Gumana, Mulkun Wirrpanda, Gundimulk Wanambi, Djerrkngu Marika, Nyangungu Marawili, Dhundhdhunga Mununggur, Munuy’ngu Marika, Burrthi Marika, Milika Marika, Djakala Wurramarrba, Muluyulk#2 Marika, Bulmirri Yunupingu, Gunybi Ganambarr, Banduk Marika, Ruby Djikarra Alderton, Naminuapu#2 Maymuru, Laklak#2 Ganambarr, Boliny Wanambi, Nawurapu Wunungmurra, Yalmakany Marawili, Mikey Gurruwiwi, Ishmael Marika, Djuwakan#2 DJ Marika, Dhalmula Burarrwanga, Gandhurrminy Yunupingu, Barrata Marika, Gurmarrwuy Yunupingu, Malaluba Gumana, Djalinda Yunupingu, Wukun Wanambi, Garawan Wanambi and Djirrirra Wunungmurra.

Songlines: tracking the seven sisters.

15 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in art, museums, photos

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Aboriginal art, National Museum of Australia, songlines, the Seven Sisters

The story is written in the country now, in the rock holes, hills, and dunes.

The story is also told at the National Museum of Australia in a stunning exhibition of paintings, holograms, wooden bowls, ceramics, woven baskets, woven figures and cinematic immersion.

Songlines: tracking the seven sisters traces the pursuit of seven sisters by an ancestral shape-shifter over vast expanses of Australia through three different tribal lands: the country of the Martu (the western desert in central Western Australia); the Ngaanyatjarra (between Alice Springs and Kalgoorlie – 3% of Australia); and the Anangu/Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytatjara (in the northwest of South Australia).

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by Josephine Mick, born about 1950

The names of the characters might change (the pursuer is Nyurla and Wati Nyiru; the sisters collectively Minyipuru, Kungkarrangkalpa and Kungkarangkalpa) and the story darken, but there is continuity as the journey forms the landscape, until finally the sisters escape into the sky and become the star-cluster of the Pleiades.

The representations begin with an arrangement of striking woven figures.

The information panels are written in language, as well as English, and many of the paintings have an interpretation of the symbols. The colours are breathtakingly vivid, traditional Aboriginal dots and symbols emerging from the dark walls. I’ve offered close-ups with some trepidation at taking them from the whole image, since the image carries so much meaning.

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“Minyipuru” (“Seven Sisters”) laid out on the ground at Kilykily (Well 36 on the Canning Stock Route) where it was painted in 2007 Source: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/artworks/minyipuru_jukurrpa

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Detail from “Kuru Ala” 2016: Estelle Inyika Hogan, Myrtle Pennington, Ngalpingka Simms, Lorraine Davies, Debbie Hansen, Tjaruwa Angelina Woods

A collection of woven baskets offers the configuration of the Pleiades.

Every now and then you are confronted by tall videos of Aboriginal women, talking about their version of the story.

A digital dome with a circular couch and headrests allows you to look into the sky, and to see the Walinynga (Cave Hill) rock art, which begins 3500 years ago and continues into the present.

A second collection of woven figures, dance and cast their shadows as we move in to Ngaanyatjarra lands. There too is a room of ceramics, yet another way to tell the story.

In the APY lands, Wati Nyiru checks his footprints and counts his toes -7? 5? 3?. He recognises himself as a sorcerer at last and this answers the question he has been asking himself: “Why don’t they like me?”

Tjungkara Ken dreamed about painting on a round canvas to track the journey of Kungkarangkalpa across 600 kilometres from the Northern Territory to South Australia to Western Australia. What she and her sisters painted is an encyclopaedic map conveying the knowledge carried in Songlines about bush medicine, bush food and water sources.

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“Kungkarangkalpa”: Tjungkara Ken, Yaritji Young, Maringka Tunkin, Freda Brady, Sandra Ken – circle painting, interpretation and detail

Tjunkaya Tapaya is a traditional owner at Atila. She says “I have painted this Tjukurpa (Creation of country) on many canvases, and my Tjukurpa has gone out to many places sharing this important story.”

The last lot of woven figures show the Seven Sisters escaping into the sky to become the star cluster, Pleiades, the end of their story. My photos don’t do them justice, but you can see the figures and learn about their making here.

Coda

Songlines were given legal authority in the Australian Federal Court in 2005 when it recognised the Ngaanyatjarra people’s claim to 180 000 square kilometres. Celebrations included dancing the Seven Sisters.

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“Land rights”, 2011 by Eunice Yunurupa Porter

For the Seven Sisters story told on-site in language (with captions), click here

For quality reproductions and photos of the artists, click here.

If you want to know more about what Songlines are, click here

My apologies if I’ve made any protocol mistakes, omissions or mis-attributions.

Celebration

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by morselsandscraps in art, photos

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Aboriginal art, NAIDOC week, Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to acknowledge the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This year the theme is Our languages matter. In the late 18th century, when the British invaded, there were 250 distinct Indigenous language groups, most with several dialects. Today only about 120 of those languages are still spoken: there are many attempts to reclaim languages that are almost lost, often word by meagre word. Many members of the Stolen Generation remember being beaten for speaking language, as a frontline attempt at brutal assimilation.

Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery in partnership with the Granite Belt Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation marks the  week with an exhibition of Aboriginal art by local and visiting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. It “connects past and present, people and land, spirituality and reality,” representing one of the oldest ongoing traditions of art in the world. It offers me many pleasures: design, colour and familiarities.

The first collage is a mix of items behind glass: Aboriginal designs on wood, cap, ceramics, shells, and baby jumpsuits. The two brown and black wooden bowls are by Timeika Reena Slockee; the shells by Aurora De Vries; and to my shame I didn’t record Jumpsuit details.

A few artists are so distinctive that I recognise them instantly: Krishna Heffernan’s “Gum flowers”, “Campfire”, “Creek bubbles” and “Brisbane River”, all bright with acrylic, paper and thread on canvas …

… Corina Graham’s mixed media with gold leaf …

… Rod McIntosh’s elegant stylised animals …

… and Timeika Rena Slockee’s “Sandhills”, “Wild flowers at the waterhole”,  “Mothers of nature” and the painting that expresses the theme of NAIDOC week, “Reconnecting language.”



There are too many painting that please me to feature each one separately, so here’s a collage with attributions clockwise from the top left: Chenaya Bancroft-Davis’ linoprint “Sacred site”: Maris de Vries’  “Mudfish” (acrylic on canvas): Bronwyn Smith’s “Fish trap” (acrylic on canvas): Chenaya Bancroft-Davis’ “Jacaranda season” (acrylic on canvas): another Bronwyn Smith “Fish trap” (acrylic on canvas): Marica Staples’ “Emus” (acrylic on canvas): Tully de Vries’ “Gali lady” (acrylic on canvas): Amanda Watts-Nyoor’s “Kungarakan mum” (acrylic on canvas): and in the centre Amarina Nhaynes’ “Moorgumpin Nguru Wandehn – Moreton Bay spirits” (acrylic on canvas).

I can’t resist a few closeups: Charmaine Davis’ “The rocks” (acrylic on canvas) because of its connection with boulder country …


… and River Brando Binge’s “Miri Mari – star people” because of its drama and the way it mixes traditional Aboriginal dots, handprints and figure with modern owl and starbursts in a circle.


I end my personalised exhibition with the unexpectedness of a shower curtain, Melanie Forbes’ black and white “Tree of life” (digital print on PEVA) …

… and, for my daughter whose avatar is the quoll, Kim Charles’ “Spotted quoll” (acrylic on canvas).

Last day in Melbourne 

02 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by morselsandscraps in art, gardens, photos

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Aboriginal art, buildings, Melbourne Botanical Gardens, rainforest, sculpture, Seven Seeds

This post is to say thank you to Desley who met me for breakfast in the middle of a monumentally busy schedule. For once “the best coffeee in …” lived up to the hype, and we chatted over two cups and a classy Melbourne breakfast.

My date with Desley nearly came unstuck because I can’t read maps, paper or Google. Nor can I follow g-map verbal instructions. But I can ask a man in a hard-hat, at least in Australia, and that’s how I found Seven Seeds, pretty well spot on time, although I almost walked right past it. The buzz of conversation behind an anonymous door prevented that disaster.

Breakfast set me up for a day of walking, beginning at the war memorial. 

After its grandiloquence it was a relief to reach the Botanical Gardens and more humble buildings built to suit their more practical functions: an observatory, a small building for the study of magnetism, and a house whose purpose I have forgotten.

After days absorbed by the city, it is a relief to walk on soft green grass and be towered over by trees. I follow the camellia walk and then venture via rainforest into the Chinese plantings, passing two special trees on the way. I suspect I’m not a city person at heart. I felt at home particularly amongst tree ferns, buttress roots, splotchy bark, and the sound of gurgling water. I’ve been a long time out of rainforest. 






I leave the gardens at Gate H, and head back towards the city along the lunchtime jogging trail bordered by shapely plants chosen for sturdiness, accompanied by the smell of sweat and spurts of dust as joggers pant past.

I’m heading towards the Australian section of the National Gallery of Victoria for a quick look at their Aboriginal gallery, but first there’s a sculptural treat in the parkland leading to Federation Square.

The gallery taunts me with far too many possibilities for the short time left. I certainly can’t resist the corrugated iron (Rosalie Gascoigne created the horizontals; Victor Meertens the verticals; time the materials) …

… but I’m really here for something else, which turns out to be bark paintings, weaving and basket work by women artists. The natural colours of country affect me the same way rainforest does. Again, I feel at home.





The Aboriginal artists are Nonggirrnga Marawili (bark paintings);  Linda Ganyila Guyula (woman’s string hat); Mary Muyungu (string bag with shells); Margaret Robyn Djunginy (suite of woven bottles); Delissa Walker (baskets with shells); Yalakupu 1 (string bag with feathers); Mary Mutumurruwuy (fish net); Elizabeth Djutarra (woven floor mat).


That’s not the end of my day. There’s still Australia Opera’s performance of “Carmen” to come.

Cowra

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by morselsandscraps in Cowra, photos

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

Aboriginal art, churches, old bridge, roses

It's always salutary to ramble through a town you think you're familiar with. We had plenty of time after booking into the motel, and an urge to eat olives and artichoke hearts with our dinner hummus. So we set out, excessively clothed, just in case, to cross the bridge into town, passing a tall guardian bird and then discovering a reason to make Cowra too a waystation: vast beds of heritage roses at the junction of three mid-western highways. They were piled deep with mulch and expertly pruned to encourage abundant flowering. Each one had a stone plaque recording its name.

 

 

 

The Lachlan River flowed calmly under the bridge in the late afternoon light, long shadows falling.

 

 

An impressive brick church called the camera, but the need for signs and lamp-posts and advertisements and cars obscured it, calling for a bit of savage cropping. I longed for the spaciousness of a square or parkland like those in front of grand buildings in Poznań.

 

 

Shopping done, we found that the old low-lying bridge, built like the one over the Tuross on the mountain road to Nerrigundah, was still in service, so we crossed the river that way, looking down into submerged shopping trolleys. That was when we discovered the unexpected. The vast concrete pylons of the big bridge were painted, mainly with Aboriginal designs, although big rigs also featured.

 

 

 

We sat at the table outside our room in the last of the sun and feasted on our spoils. Then we retired for our last night cohabiting and away from home in this lengthy three-month stint at opposite ends of the world.

 

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