Week 2

Aboriginal Art

This weeks class reading was an extract of 'Aboriginal Art' by Howard Morphy. The topic of discussion was surrounding what is Aboriginal art, religion, dreaming and basically how Aboriginal art differs from Non-Aboriginal art. The following is notes and responses from the class and the readings.

It is important to realise that, to many aboriginal artists, they don't necessarily refer to their paintings as art. They consider the distinctions between art, craft and design and the the divisions between traditional and contemporary art, based on European understandings of art irrelevant. Many Aboriginal artists  work in their chosen fields because the art is part of their culture, beliefs and history and it provides a way to sustain life, both economically as well as culturally and spiritually. This art also reflects the personal and distinctive journeys of the artist. It reflects the values of the culture in which the artists lives and it is often understood only by a limited and informed audience. Visual art is only one way of expressing Aboriginal dreaming. Once done on cave walls, on bodies, and on the ground, it is now painted on bark and canvas as well, often also symbolising dispossession and alienation. 

Many Aboriginal artists in recent decades living in tradition oriented communities have moved away from the iconographic styles of the ceremonial paintings of their ancestors and have embraced abstraction as a form of expressing their culture and religious beliefs, making their work no less authentic than traditional artists.

Aboriginal culture has always been a living and adapting culture, through interacting with Macassan trading, coping with dramatically changing climates and shifts in coastline over many thousands of years as well as the traumatic effects of the past two hundred years of colonisation. The invasion and settlement by Europeans and others in Australia has resulted in trauma and dispossession for most Aboriginal people who survived.

In urban areas, the art is classified as Contemporary Aboriginal Art and a major difference is that the story or symbols depicted and their particular designs are not always handed down the ancestors. Contemporary Aboriginal artists have often, though not always, been separated from their traditional culture, and their painting or other forms of art have enabled them to express their history, culture and spirituality in diverse but uniquely Aboriginal ways.

The use of Repetition was also mentioned within the discussion, and questioned if it was a purely Aboriginal Art technique. This is not the case, as the theme of repetition is used constantly throughout art and represents many things. It brings aesthetic qualities to the work, such as consistency between works, making work easily recognisable, such as Aboriginal art with its many repeated lines and dots. This technique is also used by other other artists within their work, such as Andy Warhol who used repeated imagery a lot of the time. His work interestingly contrast with Aboriginal work, in that Aboriginal work represents their deep culture and its importance, while Warhol's work does the opposite and makes fun of culture by misrepresentation.

Interesting Links:

• http://aboriginalart.com.au/
• http://www.warhol.org/ (Andy warhol Collection)