Art in Aboriginal Australia

In honor of the closing of Inside Tracks: Alone Across the Outback, Photographs by Rick Smolan, we are doing a segment on contemporary art from Aboriginal Australia on the Art School Blog. 

Contemporary Aboriginal art has the unique quality of being at once steeped in tradition and representative of individual artistic vision. In this way, the title of Ian McLean's book "How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art" rings true. Contemporary Aboriginal artists in Australia are expressing their ancestral culture with contemporary art supplies, creating works of an unironic brilliance rare in today's art market. Sales that have broken the $2 million barrier at international art auctions bring economic independence to marginalized communities with nary a tale of new found fortune gone awry.

Robyn Davidson's adventure, retold in her book and the recent film Tracks took place in the legendary desert wilderness of Outback Australia, known as the Bush to the country's natives. The incredible story, captured in the photographs by Rick Smolan and his book Inside Tracks, tells of the landscape and the hardships that befall a person alone in that challenging environment. The native Australians inhabited this land long before European contact, having developed a complex animist cosmology known as Dreamtime, with evidence in rock art dating back 60,000 years. Theirs is considered the oldest continuing culture, which has evolved with contemporary Aborigines into a vibrant contemporary art. 

As we celebrate the land down under, artistic excellence and boldness of vision, please take a moment to look at a few images collected here that received the Telstra Art Award (National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award) for artistic excellence in 2014. They are shown here along with the Judge's comments.

Daniel Walbidi, Wirnpa & Sons, 2014

2014 General Painting Award
Uncommon in Aboriginal painting practices, silver and gold pigments are employed in Daniel Walbidi’s Wirnpa and Sons 2014 giving life to the stark bleached saltpans and the parched desert sand dunes of his homelands. The harsh nature of these lands is tempered by a delicate organic overlay that carries the stories of ancestral beings such as the jila (living water), rainmaker of the Great Sandy Desert. Daniel’s paintings are like satellite photographs that concentrate on typographical complexities while they also eloquently translate his people’s stories as told to him by elders. Daniel is a sophisticated colourist who utilizes both typical desert tones and saltwater hues to narrate the dual nature of the cultural heritage of Bidyadange with vibrancy and confidence.

Garawan Wanambi, Marrangu, 2014

2014 Telstra Bark Painting Award

Garawan Wanambi uses the expressive qualities of his clan’s geometric patterns as a medium for the representation of restricted sacred areas in Arnhem Land.  This work contains a narrative that involves the mosquito ancestor, a symbol of aggression, who fights with spears and who is known for creating spiritual danger. In Marrangu the designs represents a place at the mouth of a river where fresh water boils up underneath the salt water. Garawan focuses on the changing waters, from turbulent to calm, with an intricate weave of pastel colours that give great depth to his work. Viewers will be mesmerized by the distinctive patterns and the lustrous surface of the painting that imitate the idea of light on water. 

2014 Work on Paper Award
Nici Cumpston uses photography to convey a spiritual and cultural connection to her country, capturing a sense of mystery as well as the physical landscapes. Scar tree, Barkindji country straddles the line between the serene and the dynamic. Nici looks at degraded landscapes, which are surviving, and prospering, they become a metaphor for Aboriginal people and culture. She has transformed this black and white image through the colour that she vigorously applies, reinserting her presence into the landscape. With dynamism and spirit, colour bursts off the page and cannot be contained by the frame of the picture, similar to Indigenous culture and presence on country. 

Nici Cumpston, Scar Tree, Barkindji Country, hand-colored inkjet print, 2014

INSIDE TRACKS AT THE MIKHAIL ZAKIN GALLERY

A new exhibition of photographs by the highly acclaimed photojournalist and National Geographic photographer, Rick Smolan, is on view through March 4-31^st in the Mikhail Zakin Gallery. A free film-screening will accompany the exhibition on Saturday, March 7 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM followed with a talk by Rick Smolan, author and photographer of Inside Tracks. This bold, beautiful “smart phone enabled” coffee table book, is based on one of the most beloved stories in the history of National Geographic Magazine: 27-year-old Robyn Davidson’s 1700 mile trek across the Australian outback.  Davidson’s journey from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, accompanied by just four camels and a dog, inspired her own bestselling book, Tracks, a cult classic that has sold over a million copies, has been translated into 18 languages and is required reading in Australian schools.

Rick Smolan, the American photographer assigned by National Geographic to document her journey, had his own adventure tracking Robyn down in the desert periodically throughout her journey. The outback of Australia, seen through Robyn's eyes and Rick's cameras, is an ancient awesome landscape swept by rain, heat and dust and inhabited by all varieties of marauding life, from poisonous snakes to wild bull camels but is also inhabited by the caring aboriginal people of the Pitjantjatjara tribe and the outback farmers who encouraged and helped Robyn during her journey.

The incredible story is now a major motion picture titled “Tracks” from the Oscar winning producers of "The Kings Speech". In the film Robyn is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Rick by Adam Driver (HBO's Girls). A special state of the art Canon projection system will be used for the March 7th presentation of the feature film.

At the film screening event, Rick will share images and behind the scenes stories from Robyn's adventure and will also autograph copies of Inside Tracks. The magnificently printed book features more than two hundred photographs from Robyn’s journey, many never published before, as well as an inside look at the making of the TRACKS movie, with scene photographs and excerpts from the script.

“To me” says Rick Smolan “what matters most is that she [Robyn]  permitted herself to listen to the little voice in her head that propelled her to set off on such a risky journey. My deepest hope is that Inside Tracks and Robyn’s belief that ‘an ordinary person is capable of anything’ will inspire readers to embark on their own voyage of self-discovery”

Special thanks to Hank Gans, photography instructor at the Art School at Old Church who helped organize this inspiring exhibition of photography. Please call (201) 767-7160 by March 5th to RSVP to the March 7th film screening. The exhibition and film event are wheelchair accessible. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday: 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM. Call ahead for evening and weekend hours.