Talk:Indigenous Australian art

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[edit] Questions

Does anyone know what the Colours in aboriginal art mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.178.186.12 (talk) 00:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The colours in traditional aboriginal art were based on plant dyes, ochre etc. The colours usually represent 'country'. But you have to take a spatial perspective to understanid it. The colours aren't as important as the haptic nature of the design. Hence, artists that use acrylics tend to go for very brightly coloured paintings. You can contrast this with say the Papunya movement (using acrylics heavily) vs the Warmun movement (which uses ochre so it's more dark). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.200.232.245 (talk) 04:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems that Aborginal art shares common themes and styles with the Psychedelic art movement, e.i. the use of concentric circles, swirling patters, fractal-like patterns, etc. Like psychedelic art, does aboriginal art originate from a visual representation of a drug-enduced experience? In other words, did aboriginal artists get their inspiration from the use of drugs like the Native Americans' use of Peyote? --Atomicskier 06:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is no. I am not aware of any literature, interviews etc in which any artist has made this suggestion. In general the patterns in most Indigenous art are linked to one of three origins: body painting patterns (often related to rituals); other pre-existing artistic or cultural symbols (for example patterns used to denote particular information, such as people travelling or camping), or interpretations of geography at different scales (for example representations of mountain ranges at one extreme, to patterns in the ground made by the roots of desert yams at the other). hamiltonstone 06:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
That's very helpful. Thanks. --Atomicskier 20:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contemporary Aboriginal Art

This page is almost exclusively devoted to traditional Aboriginal art. Should it be expanded to include contemporary Aboriginal art, or should that be a topic for a separate page?

Fmarkham 01:45, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well its been expanded to include contemporary artists now.. Cfitzart 06:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

With respect, in the interests of accuracy, I disagree with the definition of “Australian Aboriginal art” in the opening paragraph of this article. I will give my reasons, offer an alternative definition and invite comment.

The current definition is:

Australian Aboriginal art refers to art done by Australian Aborigines, covering art that pre-dates European colonisation as well as contemporary art by Aborigines based on traditional culture.

Certainly art done by indigenous peoples before European colonisation must be defined as Australian Aboriginal art. However, I don’t understand how “as well as contemporary art by Aborigines based on traditional culture” is accurate. Are we to understand from the second part of the above definition that it is impossible for non-aboriginal artists to create Australian Aboriginal art? If this is so I welcome an explanation of how a style of art is exclusive.

The following example illustrates my point.

A group of artists is working in the same workshop. An aboriginal artist has two didgeridoos that are going to be decorated with ochre dots based on a traditional culture to create works of art. The aboriginal artist paints the first didgeridoo. It fits the above definition of a piece of Australian Aboriginal art because it is contemporary art by an Aborigine based on traditional culture. The aboriginal artist then asks a nearby non-aboriginal artist to paint the second didgeridoo in a similar way. The non-aboriginal artist paints it. All the artists in the workshop agree that the second didgeridoo is a work of art based on a traditional aboriginal culture. According to the definition in the first paragraph of this article the second didgeridoo is not a piece of Australian Aboriginal art because it is not done by an Aborigine. If it is not Australian Aboriginal art what is it?

With respect I suggest an edit of the definition to read the following:

Australian Aboriginal art refers to art done 1) by Australian Aborigines, covering art that pre-dates European colonisation and 2) contemporary art based on traditional Australian Aboriginal culture.

Your comments are welcome.

Oops! above from --Eric 12:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If there is no objection I intend to alter the definition of what is 'Australian Aboriginal art' to my suggestion above in a couple of days. --Eric 11:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

How is an external link to a podcast specifically and solely on the topic of Aboriginal art a "content-free link"? Goliardhk 02:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this definition is wrong. I also think it's wrong to even seek a definition of 'Aboriginal art' beyond saying it is ANY art created by an Aboriginal person. You can't define the art any further than that. You could perhaps say what identifies someone as being Australian Aboriginal (ie. they identify themselves as Aboriginal, their community/family identifies them as Aboriginal, they have Aboriginal ancestors), and then mention the main movements and styles of art. Also, I think the term 'modern' Aboriginal art is misleading as it implies Modernist (which of course is true of some artists, but not all contemporary artists). But I'm new here and won't change anything yet. - Dot

[edit] Clifford

Is there a reason that this is "Clifford possum" and not "Clifford Possum"? Rmhermen 00:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess Clifford is a name taken from a European ancestor while Possum would reflect his skin or dreaming affiliation hence "Clifford Possum". His daughter is also called "Gabriella Possum" but in central Australia, the tribal names change for example, Clifford Possum's last name is Tjapaltjarri but his female descendants take the last name Nungurayyi. There's an intricate connection with the last names as a preventative measure against marrying a person who is too closely related to you. I'd produce the figure when I have the time but the reference is in the Geoffrey Bardon books.

[edit] Aboriginal co-ops and Exploitation

Hello all, I've added a section on Aboriginal co-ops. I'm glad that the Wikipedia page doesn't have any links to private dealers (yet). So I have added the Aboriginal cooperatives that do have an online presence so readers who are interested in the art don't go to one of the million links of private art dealers when they could go directly to the cooperatives. Some people may ask why the artists sell to the private dealers - well it's because the artists can get money quickkly in an instant whereas with the coops they have to wait until their paintings sell. Ergo, the price the artists sell to the private dealers is cheaper and the dealers can have a good mark-up price.

As for the exploitation bit, the story of the dealer case in Melbourne literally kidnapping the group of artists I think is very important to be noticed. I have seen instances of individuals who happen to know Aboriginal painters selling artworks on Ebay Australia. When you ask for a Certificate of Authenticity, they say "well I've taken 10 photos of this artist doing the painting, isn't that enough?" Well no, when they do it in your kitchen in exchange for receiving booze or quick money then I think that's exploitation. So I do encourage people to cite articles or verifiable cases where exploitation of artists have occurred. On the Yuendumu/Warlu.com website, the history actually mentions why it was established - the artists felt they were exploited. Actually, I'm going to put that in now :-)

There is major debate about exploitation of Indigenous artists, and it is good there is a section on this. However i do not think the fraud element of it should be overstated, hence my recent edit. Happy to discuss if anyone differs. hamiltonstone 07:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allowing Private Dealers Links?

What is the policy regarding allowing links to private dealers and galleries? Are they allowed? I've noticed there are already a couple of links in the External Links section belonging to some private art dealers. Is it fair to have the External Links section populated by the websites of private dealers or would that mean this entry could potentially be too commercialised? I'm going to check the other art movements and see how they handle this. 203.217.63.244 12:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've checked out the other entries - Australian art, American Art/visual arts of America, Minimalism, Contemporary art. And their external links do not have private dealers' websites. Most have links to national galleries. So I'm going to delete the private dealer links. 203.217.63.244 12:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I've also looked into the archives of the entry - specifically around August 2006, there was a spate of commercial links being added. The links were reverted as Wiki does have a ban against commercial links :-) So that solves this query! 203.217.63.244 13:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I am making a second clean-up of commercial gallery links. To others wanting to put links in this page, can I suggest a compromise? Leave the Aboriginal Art Directory link in the 'external links' area (it shouldn't be under Aboriginal Art Movements and Coops, because it isn't either of these things). At least it is a directory of commercial outlets, not one outlet. I have removed the link to Aboriginalartstore.com.au because, even though it has pages containing info about aspects of Aboriginal art, at heart it is one particular retailer, whose main business is selling art. Most for-profit Indigenous art dealers have some information about Indigenous art somewhere on their sites, but I didn't think this really qualifies them to put links in here. I also notice that mostly when these links are put in, they are being placed anonymously. If anyone doesn't like my approach, can you post some discussion here? hamiltonstone 10:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow Serpent

On the ABC there was a television series called "Around the World in 80 Treasures". One episode went to Australia and NT. There, they showed a rock art of the "Rainbow Serpent" The commentator was surprised because in general we think that it is a colourful serpent. On the rock art it showed a a rainbow arc and that was the serpent. Not rainbow as in colourful but rainbow as in the shape. It might be helpful to this page that a photo of that rock art be included in this page. Like this one http://www.ozoutback.com.au/postcards/postcards_forms/rockpaintings_nt/Source/12.htm 124.168.170.114 08:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thylacine Rock Art

Don't know if this is the right place for this request, but could someone from here contribute a rock art image of a Thylacine to the Thylacine page? It is notable as the art has been found on the mainland of Aus. --Mutley 09:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aerial landscape

I reverted an edit by an unregistered user who removed all mention of aerial landscape. The reasons given were:

(1) claimed concern that the section was placed by a commercial gallery -

No; wrong: I placed the section there, and I'm not a commercial gallery; furthermore, I'm registered, while the presuming editor is not.

(2) claim that the aerial landscape aspect of the art is already treated adequately elsewhere -

Wrong; nothing that clearly specifies and describes the aerial nature of these landscapes is anywhere in the article except in the deleted section.

It's conceivable that the section needed rewriting, or that its contents would preferably be integrated with other sections of the article, rather than making a separate section. But the simple deletion of its entire content cannot be defended; it impoverishes the article. MdArtLover 17:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.170.59 (talk) 18:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)