What is Aboriginal art?

Aboriginal art is art made by Aboriginal people – full stop! It is easy looking through a western cannon to try and label it and place it within a time line of art movements but you must put any other preconceptions aside. Aboriginal art comprises a huge diversity of subjects, forms, and future possibilities. There can be rules about what a particular artist can, and cannot make art about, and particular subjects on which a particular artist will want to focus. However, the style an artist chooses is not rule bound it comprises of so many more facets, which sometimes belong to cultural practice and more recently the contemporary:

dance, enthused audiences around the world by the world-class Bangarra Dance Theatre or the Northern Territory Chooky Dancers’ interpretation of Zorba the Greek,

visual arts and craft, including pottery, textile-based art, weaving, jewellery, ceramics, wood carving, miniature carvings, grass weaving (tjanpi), shell stringing and movies,

Aboriginal theatre,

language, which includes Aboriginal music and storytelling

lore, the ‘body of knowledge’ passed on through storytelling

photography

ceremony, both traditional and contemporary for tourists (see Welcome to Country)

Contemporary/Urban/New media, young Aboriginal artists take it into the new millennium and become Aboriginal new media artists.

Karen Casey is such an Indigenous new media artist. Descended from the Pydairrerme people of the Tasman Peninsula, she created Art of Mind in 2004. A computer program lets the audience see the artist’s brain activity. “In Art of Mind, I focus on my inner connection with the land and with others and on promoting reconciliation and people coming together. People genuinely want to make a connection, to be on the same ‘wavelength’ and this is what we explore,” says Karen [3].

Indigenous art in Australia is becoming a subset of the mainstream art space: defined by race and by its concerns, but less and less distinct in its methods and techniques.—Nicolas Rothwell, The Australian [12

For more examples of Aboriginal art go to:

http://nga.gov.au/COLLECTIONS/ATSI/