THE DREAMING

Aboriginal art dates as far back as 50,000 years ago. The earliest works are drawings and carvings on rocks. In some area of Australia, Aborigine artists still make their own paints and brushes. In the northern part of Australia, the X-ray painting is still being created today. Tree bark is used in place of canvas. In the western desert areas, where Papunya dot paintings are made, 20th century art materials are being used to produce millennia old imagery. In both cases, the imagery relates to Dreaming. The Dreaming is the time of creation whose stories explain how the landscape was made by super beings. Along with the Dreaming stories, the rights to paint specific images from them, are past down from generation to generation.

These works of art are of interest for what they tell us about Aborigine culture as well as their appeal to contemporary art.

Traditional Art Materials

Minerals are ground into powdered pigment

Pigments are applied with brushes made from human hair or with sticks that have been flattened and frayed at the ends.

Papunya dot paintings are currently made with 20th century materials of acrylic paint on canvas.

Papunya

“Muliera Two by Bob Tjungurrayi

The painting depicts ceremonial body paint. Men paint curving lines from their ankles to their shoulders and adorn themselves with a plant fiber called Wamulu. The fiber has colors added and is represented by the background dots.

The "X-ray" tradition in Aboriginal art is thought to have developed around 2000 B.C. and continues to the present day. As its name implies, the X-ray style depicts animals or human figures in which the internal organs and bone structures are clearly visible. X-ray art includes sacred images of ancestral supernatural beings as well as secular works depicting fish and animals that were important food sources. In many instances, the paintings show fish and game species from the local area. Through the creation of X-ray art, Aboriginal painters express their ongoing relationships with the natural and supernatural worlds.

Contemporary X-Ray drawing