Indigenous Art, Culture & Design: Regional Styles

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Great lecture today! I loved that we are now learning about the different regional styles, I don't feel so 'in the dark' about recognising Indigenous artwork.

We were given these three artworks above and had to choose which region they belonged too: The Desert, The Kimberley, or Arnhem Land (top end).

Initially I chose the one on the left to be from The Desert, the middle to be from Arnhem Land, and the art on the right to be The Kimberley. I only got 1 out of 3!!

The artwork on the left is actually from The Kimberley Region. This is a painting by Rover Thomas which is from Warmun, WA. The typical style of the Kimberley Region uses natural pigments, and they have a restricted pallet due to the natural pigments they use. Blocks of colour are also typical of this region with the shapes outlined with white dots.

I was correct in guessing that the art in the centre was from the top end or Arnhem Land. They use cross hatching or 'Rark' natural pigments on bark and they also have a restricted pallet.

The art on the left is by Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula, an artist from the Western Desert. The artists from the Desert Region use Acrylic on canvas, which means they have a wide colour pallet, they use typically dots and circles. This artwork is going into the world of modern art.

I found just this part of the lecture so helpful as a basic understanding.

Within the Desert Art movement there are several subcategories. The following is examples which definitely show that each movement has produced something unique which adds to the Desert Art movement:

Western Desert - "Dot Art"