This book by a recognised Indigenous art expert, Christine Nicholls, examines the traditions from which Indigenous art has come, and emphasises the continuous links between Indigenous art, place and “The Dreaming” – the central core of Indigenous Law and religion.
The work includes sections on body painting, art from the Central and Western deserts and ‘rarrk’ painting from Arnhem Land, and highlights the extraordinary diversity that is and always has been, a hallmark of Indigenous Australian art.
She explains that this diversity derives from the variety of landscapes of Australia. The words ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’ were not used by First Nations people, as they used the name of the language groups to which they belonged. Indigenous artists made use of the materials to hand whether they were ochres for painting, reeds or grasses for weaving, wood for carving, or sand for large scale ground paintings.
Contemporary Indigenous artists use canvas for painting but employ similar designs and colours to those employed in ground paintings. Nicholls explains that Indigenous paintings are visual ways of expressing Dreaming narratives and that they often contain symbols, use a system of signs, and employ handprints. This non-fiction work is an invaluable companion to Christine Nicholls’ ‘Art, History, Place’.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
