Australian Aboriginal art - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Indigenous Australian art (also known as Australian Aboriginal art) is art made by the Indigenous peoples of Australia

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

and in collaborations between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians . It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, wood carving, rock carving, sculpture, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting

Sandpainting

Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...

. This article discusses works that pre-date European colonization as well as contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

by Aboriginal Australians

Indigenous Australians

based on traditional culture. These have been studied in recent milleniums and have gained increased international recognition.

Rock painting

Rock paintings appear on caves in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Kimberley region of Western Australia

The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.The region...

, known as Bradshaws

Bradshaws

Bradshaw rock paintings, or the Bradshaws are a distinctive style of rock art found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They are named after the pastoralist Joseph Bradshaw who was the first European to discover them in 1891, whilst searching for grazing land for his cattle...

. They are named after the European, Joseph Bradshaw, who first reported them in 1891. To Aboriginal people of the region they are known as Gwion Gwion. Traditional Aboriginal art is composed of organic colours and materials, but modern artists often use synthetic paints when creating aboriginal styles.

Aboriginal rock art has been created for a long period of time, with the oldest examples, in West Australia's Pilbara region, and the Olary district of South Australia, estimated to be up to around 40,000 years old.
Rock art gives us descriptive information about social activities, material culture, economy, environmental change, myth and religion.
This is an Aboriginal way of showing recognition and wisdom-to be open to the environment.

Bark painting

Bark paintings are now regarded as "Fine Art", and the finest bark paintings command high prices accordingly on the international art markets. The very best artists are recognized annually in the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award is one of the most prestigious art awards in Australia. Established in 1984 by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and awarded annually, it is sponsored by Telstra, so is commonly known as the Telstra Award.Prize-winners...

.

Aerial desert "country" landscapes

From ancient times, Australian aboriginal culture also produced a genre of aerial landscape art

Aerial landscape art

Aerial landscape art includes paintings and other visual arts which depict or evoke the appearance of a landscape from a perspective above it—usually from a considerable distance—as it might be viewed from an aircraft or spacecraft. Sometimes the art is based not on direct observation but on aerial...

, often titled simply "country". It is a kind of map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

like, bird's-eye view

Bird's-eye view

A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird, often used in the making of blueprints, floor plans and maps.It can be an aerial photograph, but also a drawing...

of the desert landscape

Landscape

Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

, and it is often meant to tell a traditional Dreaming

Dreaming (spirituality)

The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....

story. In the distant past, the common media for such artwork were rock, sand or body painting

Body painting

Body painting, or sometimes bodypainting, is a form of body art. Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and lasts for only several hours, or at most a couple of weeks. Body painting that is limited to the face is known as face painting...

; but the tradition continues today in the form of colored drawings with liquid based color on canvas (see section Papunya Tula and "Dot Painting" below).

Rock engravings

Rock engraving depends on the type of rock being used. Many different methods are used to create rock engravings.
There are several different types of Rock art

Rock art

Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...

across Australia, the most famous of which is Murujuga

Murujuga

Murujuga , is a peninsula often known as Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, adjoining the Dampier Archipelago and near the town of Dampier...

in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, the Sydney Rock Engravings

Sydney rock engravings

Sydney rock engravings are a form of Australian Aboriginal Rock Art consisting of carefully drawn images of people, animals, or symbols, in the sandstone around Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

around Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, and the Panaramitee rock art in Central Australia

Central Australia

Central Australia/Alice Springs Region is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory. The term Central Australia is used to describe an area centred on Alice Springs in Australia. It is sometimes referred to as Centralia; likewise the people of the area are sometimes called Centralians...

.

The rock art at Murujuga is said to be the world's largest collection of petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s and includes images of extinct animals such as Thylacine

Thylacine

The thylacine or ,also ;binomial name: Thylacinus cynocephalus, Greek for "dog-headed pouched one") was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian wolf...

. Activity prior to the last ice age until colonisation

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

are recorded.

The Sydney Rock Art has its own peculiar style, not found elsewhere in Australia, with beautiful carved animals, humans, and symbolism.

Stone arrangements

Stone arrangements in Australia range from the 50m-diameter circles of Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, with 1m-high stones firmly embedded in the ground, to the smaller stone arrangements found throughout Australia, such as those near Yirrkala which depict accurate images of the praus used by Macassan Trepang

Trepang

Trepang may refer to:*trepang, a marine invertebrate harvested by trepanging, thus:**a common name for species of the holothuroidea class of animals*Trepang , a World War II submarine sunk in 1967....

fishermen.

See Aboriginal stone arrangements for more details.

Carvings and sculpture

Carved shells - Riji
Riji
Riji are the pearl shells traditionally worn by Aboriginal men in the north-west part of Australia, around present day Broome. The word Riji is from the Bardi language. Another word for it is jakuli....
Mimih (or Mimi) small man-like carvings of mythological imp
Imp
An imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition. The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree.-Folklore:...

ish creatures. Mimihs are so frail that they never venture out on windy days lest they be swept away like leaf litter. It is said their necks are so thin a slight breeze might snap their heads off. If approached by men they will run into a rock crevice, if no crevice is there, the rocks themselves will open up and seal behind the Mimih.
Necklaces and other jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...

, such as those from the Tasmanian Aborigines
Tasmanian Aborigines
The Tasmanian Aborigines were the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Before British colonisation in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Parlevar. A number of historians point to introduced disease as the major cause of the destruction of the full-blooded...

Weaving and string-art

Basket weaving- see Australian Aboriginal fibrecraft
Australian Aboriginal fibrecraft
Australian Aboriginal fibrecraft refers to the various ways Australian Aborigines created fibres traditionally. Materials used depended on where the people lived in Australia.-Bark:...

Iconography and symbols

The imagery of the Aboriginal culture, as can be seen in many of the sacred sites, rock and cave paintings, used few colours as they were often made from what was available locally. Some colours were mined from ‘ochre pits’, being used for both painting and ceremonies, with ochre

Ochre

Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...

also traded between clans and at one time could only be collected by specific men within the clan. Other pigments were made from clay

Clay earth pigment

Clay earth pigments are naturally occurring minerals, principally iron oxides, that have been used since prehistoric times as pigments. The primary types are*ochre*sienna*umber...

, wood ash or animal blood. There were variations in the symbolic representation of some rock art and paintings, depending on the tribe or region of Australia that you belong to, which is still evident today in the modern art work of Aboriginal artists. The dotted motifs of much of today's Aboriginal modern design work has become the trademark of the contemporary Aboriginal Art movement. Its iconic status developed from a culture stretching back into the history of an ancient land, evolving and weaving into desert dreamtime stories.

Certain symbols within the Aboriginal modern art movement retain the same meaning across regions, although the meaning of the same symbols may change within the context of the whole painting. When viewed in monochrome other symbols can look similar, such as the circles within circles, sometimes depicted on their own, sparsely or in clustered groups. When this symbol is used and depending on the Aboriginal tribe you belong to, it can vary in meaning from campfire, tree, hill, digging hole, waterhole or spring. Use of the symbol can be clarified further by the use of colour, such as water being depicted in blue or black.

Many paintings by Aboriginal artists, such as those that represent a 'dreamtime story', are shown from an aerial perspective. The narrative follows the lie of the land, as created by ancestral beings in their journey or during creation. The modern day rendition is a reinterpretation of songs, ceremonies, rock art and body art that was the norm for many thousands of years.

Whatever the meaning, interpretations of the icons should be taken in context of the entire painting, the region from which the artist originates, the story behind the painting, the style of the painting, with additional clues being the colours used in some of the more modern works, such as blue circles signifying water.(Source: Aboriginal Symbols - Indigenous Australia)

Religious and cultural aspects of Aboriginal art

Traditional Aboriginal art almost always has a mythological undertone relating to the Dreamtime of Australian Aborigines. Many modern purists will say if it does not contain the spirituality of Aborigines, it is not true Aboriginal art. Wenten Rubuntja

Wenten Rubuntja

W. Rubuntja was an Australian artist and Aboriginal rights activist. He belonged to the Arrernte indigenous people of Central Australia. His works were painted in acrylic or watercolours and influenced by themes from Dreamtime myths. His paintings are to be found in Australia's Parliament House,...

, an Aboriginal landscape artist says it's hard to find any art that is devoid of spiritual meaning;

"Doesn't matter what sort of painting we do in this country, it still belongs to the people, all the people. This is worship, work, culture. It's all Dreaming
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....

. There are two ways of painting. Both ways are important, because that's culture." - source The Weekend Australian Magazine, April 2002

Story telling and totem representation feature prominently in all forms of Aboriginal artwork. Additionally the female form, particularly the female womb in X-ray style features prominently in some famous sites in Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

Graffiti and other destructive influences

Many culturally significant sites of Aboriginal rock paintings have been gradually desecrated and destroyed by encroachment of early settlers and modern-day visitors. This includes the destruction of art by clearing and construction work, erosion

Erosion

Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...

caused by excessive touching of sites, and graffiti. Many sites now belonging to National Parks have to be strictly monitored by rangers, or closed off to the public permanently. Also recently there have been animals which have gathered some of the rocks to use in nests.

Modern Aboriginal artists

In 1934 Australian painter Rex Batterbee taught Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira

Albert Namatjira

Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...

western style watercolour landscape painting, along with other Aboriginal artists at the Hermannsburg

Hermannsburg, Northern Territory

Hermannsburg is an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia, 131 km southwest of Alice Springs. It is known in the local Western Arrernte language as Ntaria....

mission in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

. It became a popular style, known as the Hermannsburg School

Hermannsburg School

The Hermannsburg School is an art movement, or art style, which began at the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s. The most well known artist of the style is Albert Namatjira...

, and sold out when the paintings were exhibited in Melbourne, Adelaide and other Australian cities. Namatjira became the first Aboriginal Australian citizen, as a result of his fame and popularity with these watercolour paintings.

In 1966, one of David Malangi

David Malangi

David Malangi was an Indigenous Australian Yolngu artist from the Northern Territory. He was one of the most well known bark painters from Arnhem Land and a significant figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art. He was born at Mulanga, on the east bank of the Glyde River.He painted on...

's designs was produced on the Australian one dollar note, originally without his knowledge. The subsequent payment to him by the Reserve Bank marked the first case of Aboriginal copyright in Australian copyright law

Australian copyright law

The copyright law of Australia defines the legally enforceable rights of creators of creative and artistic works under Australian law. The scope of copyright in Australia is defined in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 , which applies the national law throughout Australia...

.

In 1988 an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander memorial was unveiled at the National Gallery of Australia

National Gallery of Australia

The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...

in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

made from 200 hollow log coffins, which are similar to the type used for mortuary ceremonies in Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

. It was made for the bicentenary of Australia's colonisation, and is in remembrance of Aboriginal people who had died protecting their land during conflict with settlers. It was created by 43 artists from Ramingining

Ramingining, Northern Territory

Ramingining is an Indigenous community in the Northern Territory, Australia, 560 km east of Darwin. It is on the edge of the Arafura Swamp in Arnhem Land...

and communities nearby. The path running through the middle of it represents the Glyde River.

In that same year, the new Parliament House

Parliament House, Canberra

Parliament House is the meeting facility of the Parliament of Australia located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The building was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Architects and opened on 1988 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia...

in Canberra opened with a forecourt featuring a design by Michael Nelson Tjakamarra

Michael Nelson Jagamarra

-Biography:Tjakamarra was born at Vaughan Springs in the Northern Territory around 1949. He first saw white men at Mt Doreen station and remembers hiding in the bush in fear! Michael lived at Haasts Bluff for a time with the same family group as Long Jack Phillipus Tjakammara. Later his parents...

, laid as a mosaic.

The late Rover Thomas

Rover Thomas

Rover Thomas Joolama was an Indigenous Australian artist.-Early life:He was born at Gunawaggi in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. At the age of 10 Rover and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman...

is another well known modern Australian Aboriginal artist. Born in Western Australia

Western Australia

, he represented Australia in the Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

of 1991. He knew and encouraged other now well-known artists to paint, including Queenie McKenzie

Queenie McKenzie

Queenie McKenzie was a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist. She was born on Old Texas Station, on the western bank of the Ord River in the East Kimberley. Her works have sold at auction for $8000 to $15000.-External links:...

from the East Kimberley / Warmun region, as well as having a strong influence on the works of Paddy Bedford

Paddy Bedford

Paddy Bedford was a major contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Warmun in the Kimberley, and one of eight Australian artists selected for an architectural commission for the Musée du Quai Branly....

and Freddy Timms

Freddy Timms

Freddy Timms is a leading Australian Indigenous artist from the Kimberley region.-Life and art:Timms commenced painting on canvas in the 1990s at Turkey Creek / Warmun in the Kimberley region of Western Australia....

.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the work of Emily Kngwarreye

Emily Kngwarreye

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...

became very popular. Although she had been involved in craftwork for most of her life, it was only when she was in her 80s that she was recognised as a painter. She was from the Utopia community north east of Alice Springs. Kngwarreye painted for only a few years near the end of her life. Her styles, which changed every year, have been seen as a mixture of traditional Aboriginal and contemporary Australian. Her rise in popularity has prefigured that of many Indigenous artists

Contemporary Indigenous Australian art

Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians. It is generally regarded as beginning with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in 1971, involving artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri...

from central, northern and western Australia, such as Kngwarreye's niece Kathleen Petyarre

Kathleen Petyarre

Kathleen Petyarre is an eminent Australian Aboriginal artist, known for her paintings displaying an extremely refined layering technique with intricate dotting. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings, concepts that may be difficult to grasp for the non-Aboriginal viewer...

, Minnie Pwerle

Minnie Pwerle

Minnie Pwerle was an Australian Aboriginal artist...

, Dorothy Napangardi

Dorothy Napangardi

Dorothy Napangardi is a distinguished contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Mina Mina. She is one of around 3,000 Warlpiri speakers who live in or are originally from the Tanami Desert region of Central Australia....

, Jeannie Petyarre ( Pitjara ) and dozens of others, all of whose works have become highly sought-after. The popularity of these often elderly artists, and the resulting pressure placed upon them and their health, has become such an issue that some art centers have stopped selling these artists' paintings online, instead placing prospective clients on a waiting list for work.

Despite concerns about supply and demand for paintings, the remoteness of many of the artists, and the poverty and health issues experienced in the communities, there are widespread estimates of an industry worth close to half a billion dollars (Aus) and growing rapidly.

Papunya Tula and "dot painting"

In 1971–1972, art teacher Geoffrey Bardon

Geoffrey Bardon

Geoffrey Robert Bardon AM 1940, Sydney – 6 May 2003) was an Australian school teacher who was instrumental in creating the Aboriginal art of the Western Desert movement, and in bringing Australian indigenous art to the attention of the world....

encouraged Aboriginal people in Papunya, north west of Alice Springs to put their Dreaming

Dreaming (spirituality)

s onto canvas. These stories had previously been drawn on the desert

Desert

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...

sand, and were now given a more permanent form.

The dots were used to cover secret-sacred ceremonies. Originally, the Tula artists succeeded in forming their own company with an Aboriginal Name, Papunya Tula

Papunya Tula

Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as "dot painting"...

Artists Pty Ltd, however a time of disillusionment followed as artists were criticised by their peers for having revealed too much of their sacred heritage. Secret designs restricted to a ritual context were now in the market place, made visible to Australian Aboriginal painting. Much of the Aboriginal art on display in tourist shops traces back to this style developed at Papunya. The most famous of the artists to come from this movement was Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists...

. Also from this movement is Johnny Warangkula, whose Water Dreaming at Kalipinya twice sold at a record price, the second time being $486,500 in 2000.

The Papunya Collection at the National Museum of Australia

National Museum of Australia

The National Museum of Australia was formally established by the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. The National Museum preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation....

contains over 200 artefacts and paintings, including examples of 1970s dot paintings.

Issues

There have been cases of some exploitative dealers (known as carpetbaggers) that have sought to profit from the success of the Aboriginal art movements. Since Geoffrey Bardon's time and in the early years of the Papunya movement, there has been concerns about the exploitation of the largely illiterate and non-English speaking artists.

One of the main reasons the Yuendumu movement was established, and later flourished, was due to the feeling of exploitation amongst artists:

"Many of the artists who played crucial roles in the founding of the art centre were aware of the increasing interest in Aboriginal art during the 1970s and had watched with concern and curiosity the developments of the art movement at Papunya amongst people to whom they were closely related. There was also a growing private market for Aboriginal art in Alice Springs. Artists' experiences of the private market were marked by feelings of frustration and a sense of disempowerment when buyers refused to pay prices which reflected the value of the Jukurrpa or showed little interest in understanding the story. The establishment of Warlukurlangu was one way of ensuring the artists had some control over the purchase and distribution of their paintings." (Source: Warlukurlangu Artists)

Other cases of exploitation include:

painting for a lemon (car): "Artists have come to me and pulled out photos of cars with mobile phone numbers on the back. They're asked to paint 10-15 canvasses in exchange for a car. When the 'Toyotas' materalise, they often arrive with a flat tyre, no spares, no jack, no fuel." (Coslovich 2003)
preying on a sick artist: "Even coming to town for medical treatment, such as dialysis, can make an artist easy prey for dealers wanting to make a quick profit who congregate in Alice Springs" (op.cit.)
pursuing a famous artist: "The late (great) Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...

...was relentlessly pursued by carpetbaggers towards the end of her career and produced a large but inconsistent body of work." According to Sotheby's "We take about one in every 20 paintings of hers, and with those we look for provenance we can be 100% sure of." (op.cit.)

In March 2006, the ABC reported art fraud had hit the Western Australian Aboriginal Art movements. Allegations were made of sweatshop-like conditions, fake works by English backpackers, overpricing and artists posing for photographs for artwork that was not theirs. A detective on the case said:

"People are clearly taking advantage...Especially the elderly people. I mean, these are people that, they're not educated; they haven't had a lot of contact with white people. They've got no real basic understanding, you know, of the law and even business law. Obviously they've got no real business sense. A dollar doesn't really have much of a meaning to them, and I think to treat anybody like that is just… it's just not on in this country." Call for ACCC to investigate Aboriginal Art industry, ABC PM, 15 March.

Australian Senate Inquiry

In August 2006, following concerns raised about unethical practices in the Indigneous art sector, the Australian Senate initiated an inquiry into issues in the sector. The inquiry was conducted over ten months, and held public hearings in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Sydney and Canberra.

In February 2007, the Senate inquiry heard from the Northern Territory Art Minister, Marion Scrymgour

Marion Scrymgour

Marion Rose Scrymgour is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 2001, representing the electorate of Arafura. She was the Labor Party Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from November 2007 until February 2009, and was the...

, that backpackers were often the artists of Aboriginal art being sold in tourist shops around Australia. Of particular concern was the art on didgeridoos:

"The material they call Aboriginal art is almost exclusively the work of fakers, forgers and fraudsters. Their work hides behind false descriptions and dubious designs. The overwhelming majority of the ones you see in shops throughout the country, not to mention Darling, are fakes, pure and simple. There is some anecdotal evidence here in Darwin at least, they have been painted by backpackers working on industrial scale wood production."Sydney Morning Herald (2007) Backpackers fake Aboriginal art, Senate told

The inquiry's final report, handed down on 21 June 2007, made 29 recommendations, including:

greater public funding for infrastructure in the sector
more intensive policing efforts to try and eliminate unethical business practices
adoption of a code of practice across the sector
government agencies and collecting institutions to implement a code when dealing with Indigenous visual art

The report also raised the prospect of law reforms if necessary to change the way the industry was regulated.

Aboriginal art movements and cooperatives

Australian Indigenous art movements and cooperatives have been central to the emergence of Indigenous Australian art. Whereas many western artists pursue formal training and work as individuals, most contemporary Indigenous art is created in community groups and art centres.

Many of the centres operate online art galleries where local and international visitors can purchase works directly from the communities without the need of going through an intermediary. The cooperatives reflect the diversity of art across indigenous Australia from the north west region where ochre is significantly used; to the tropical north where the use of cross-hatching prevails; to the Papunya style of art from the central desert cooperatives. Art is increasingly becoming a significant source of income and livelihood for some of these communities.

Aboriginal art in international museums

The Museum for Australian Aboriginal art "La grange" (at Neuchâtel, Switzerland) is one of the very few museums in Europe that dedicates itself entirely to this kind of art. During seasonal exhibitions, works of art by internationally renowned artists are being shown in an enchanting décor. Also, The musée du quai Branly, Paris, has an "Oceania" collection, which includes works by Australian Aboriginal artists Lena Nyadbi, Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, Judy Watson, Gulumbu Yunupingu, John Mawurndjul, Tommy Watson, Ningura Napurrula and Michael Riley.

There are two museums in the world devoted exclusively to Australian Aboriginal art: the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art located in Utrecht, The Netherlands; and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia.

List of contemporary Aboriginal artists

There are many Indigenous Australian artists. Amongst the most famous are:

Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira
Albert Namatjira , born Elea Namatjira, was an Australian artist. He was a Western Arrernte man, an Indigenous Australian of the Western MacDonnell Ranges area...
Barbara Weir
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri
Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists...
Dorothy Napangardi
Dorothy Napangardi
Dorothy Napangardi is a distinguished contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from Mina Mina. She is one of around 3,000 Warlpiri speakers who live in or are originally from the Tanami Desert region of Central Australia....
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kngwarreye
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.-Life:Born in 1910, Kngwarreye did not take up painting seriously until...
Gloria Petyarre
Gloria Petyarre
Gloria Petyarre is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Anmatyerre community, just north of Alice Springs...
Kathleen Petyarre
Kathleen Petyarre
Kathleen Petyarre is an eminent Australian Aboriginal artist, known for her paintings displaying an extremely refined layering technique with intricate dotting. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings, concepts that may be difficult to grasp for the non-Aboriginal viewer...
Kathleen Ngale
Kathleen Ngale
Kathleen Ngale is a senior Australian Aboriginal artist, born ca. 1930 in the Utopia region of Central Australia...
Lily Kelly Napangardi
Lily Kelly Napangardi
Lily Kelly Napangardi is a distinguished Aboriginal artist born in the Haasts Bluff region of the Northern Territory of Australia....
John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul
John Mawurndjul is an Australian contemporary Indigenous artist. Mawurndjul's artwork is highly regarded internationally. He uses traditional motifs in innovative ways to express spiritual and cultural values....
Lin Onus
Lin Onus
William McLintock Onus was a Scottish-Aboriginal Artist of Wiradjuri descent from Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:Born Lin Burralung McLintock Onus, his father was political activist and businessman, Bill Onus...
Minnie Pwerle
Minnie Pwerle
Minnie Pwerle was an Australian Aboriginal artist...
Tracey Moffat
Richard Bell
Rosella Namok
Rosella Namok
Rosella Namok is an Indigenous Australian artist from Lockhart River, Queensland. Namok was taught art at high school and learned printmaking and other techniques through a community art project in 1997 that led to the formation of a group of artists known as the Lockhart River Art Gang.Namok is...
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas
Rover Thomas Joolama was an Indigenous Australian artist.-Early life:He was born at Gunawaggi in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. At the age of 10 Rover and his family moved to the Kimberley where, as was usual at the time, he began work as a stockman...
Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett was one of the foremost Nyoongar artists. Combining his deep knowledge and concern for Nyoongar culture with a confident and individual style of gestural abstraction, Pickett created paintings that resonated with a profound but subtle immediacy...
Shorty Jangala Robertson
Wandjuk Marika
Wandjuk Marika
Wandjuk Marika OBE, born 1927, died 1987, was an Australian Aboriginal painter, actor, composer and land rights activist. He was a member of the Riratjingu clan of the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Australia...
Wenten Rubuntja
Wenten Rubuntja
W. Rubuntja was an Australian artist and Aboriginal rights activist. He belonged to the Arrernte indigenous people of Central Australia. His works were painted in acrylic or watercolours and influenced by themes from Dreamtime myths. His paintings are to be found in Australia's Parliament House,...
Yannima Tommy Watson
Yannima Tommy Watson
Yannima Tommy Watson is a senior Pitjantjatjara man from Australia’s central western desert who has become a significant contemporary Indigenous Australian artist...

Significant sites of Aboriginal rock art

Bradshaws
Bradshaws
Bradshaw rock paintings, or the Bradshaws are a distinctive style of rock art found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They are named after the pastoralist Joseph Bradshaw who was the first European to discover them in 1891, whilst searching for grazing land for his cattle...
Carnarvon Gorge
Carnarvon Gorge
Carnarvon Gorge is located in the Southern Brigalow Belt bioregion in Central Queensland , 593 km northwest of Brisbane. Primarily created by water erosion, Carnarvon Gorge is around 30 kilometres long, and six hundred metres deep at the mouth...
Kakadu
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...
Murujuga
Murujuga
Murujuga , is a peninsula often known as Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, adjoining the Dampier Archipelago and near the town of Dampier...
Sydney Rock Engravings
Sydney rock engravings
Sydney rock engravings are a form of Australian Aboriginal Rock Art consisting of carefully drawn images of people, animals, or symbols, in the sandstone around Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
Ubirr
Ubirr
Ubirr is located in the East Alligator region of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia, and is famous for its rock art. It consists of a group of rock outcrops on the edge of the Nadab floodplain where there are several natural shelters that have a collection of Aboriginal...
Uluru
Uluru
Uluru , also known as Ayers Rock, is a large sandstone rock formation in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. It lies south west of the nearest large town, Alice Springs; by road. Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the two major features of the Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park....
Laura, Queensland
Laura, Queensland
Laura is a small town north of Lakeland in Cook Shire, Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland, Australia. It is on the only road north towards the tip of the peninsula, and is the centre for the largest collection of prehistoric rock art in the world. It also forms the northern apex of the...

External links

Arts Law Centre of Australia - Indigenous art legal issues
Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists
Australian Indigenous Art Trade Association
National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
Culture Victoria – images and videos related to traditional art and artefacts
Australian Art Collector
Australian Art Collector
Australian Art Collector is a quarterly art magazine. It primarily covers Australian contemporary and Indigenous art, but also occasionally features New Zealand and international artists.-Publication:...

magazine's Guide to Indigenous Art Centres
Remembering Forward. Australian Aboriginal Painting since 1960 at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Discussion on Country, memory and art: Understanding Indigenous art, Howard Morphy, John Carty and Dr Michael Pickering, National Museum of Australia
National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia was formally established by the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. The National Museum preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation....

, Audio on demand, 8 December 2010]
Papunya Painting: Out of the Desert, National Museum of Australia online exhibition

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