I have just returned from South Fremantle where I gave a lecture, opened an exhibition and gave a floortalk as part of Artitja Fine Art‘s exhibition ‘Exploring Colour‘ (view pics from the opening night on Facebook).
I also did an interview with Perth’s community radio station, the excellent RTR FM, which they put on their website as a podcast.
Below is my catalogue essay for the show. This is an extension of a lecture written by Susan McCulloch and myself, as part of our McCulloch & McCulloch lecture series on Indigenous art. It forms part of ongoing research into the many facets of Indigenous Australian art. Thank you to Susan for her contributions.
Colour in Aboriginal Art
‘Try to limit Warlpiri colours and you’re in trouble…look we’ve got these colours all around us everywhere…these are the colours of our world, you know.’
Paddy Japaljarri Stewart, senior artist, Yuendumu[i]
‘As the new school has established itself and the painters have refined and entrenched their techniques, the colours and their combinings have only gained in force. It has become more and more apparent that the pulse and sweep of the paintings are what bring the viewers in, and bring them nearer contact with the inner reaches of the traditional world.’
Nicolas Rothwell[ii]
Colour, as one of the main principles of art, holds a significant place within contemporary art in particular. Rothko was concerned with colour as a transcendental element, while Picasso devoted an entire three-year series to the colours blue and blue-green. Kandinsky, like the Symbolists, believed in the synaesthesic effect of colour and wrote about its relation to music. In his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art he “discussed the associative properties of specific colours and the analogies between certain hues and the sounds of musical instruments.” [iii]
Colour has, over the last 10 years, also become a huge factor in contemporary Aboriginal art. Early Papunya painters stuck to the ‘natural’ palette of ochre: browns, white, reds, oranges, yellows, black, and many still do today, although there is also often a flash of deep violet or an occasional ice blue and white palette in these artists’ work.
Ochre was the world’s first paint, and is central to Australia’s longest continuous tradition; the use and trade of ochre. Ochre sites are common throughout Australia. However, certain types are more valued than others in mythology. Classification of colour is not only a reflection of nature but according to traditional practice can represent social structures. In the Tiwi Islands the four moieties are all given a colour – red, black, white, and yellow.
In the desert, certain colours are associated with particular Dreaming stories. For example, in the myth of a creation bird ancestor, the seeds eaten may be black, yellow and so forth. This is represented in body paint, and again when painting that particular story on canvas. Colour is also associated with sites and ceremonies in which certain colours represent sites. Initiation is often concerned with red, white clay used for mourning ceremonies, and charcoal used in outline. As in the Tiwi Islands, different colours also ‘belong’ to different subsections or classifications – for example black and white for Emu dreaming people: Jampjinpa/Nampijinpa and Jangala/Nangala, and Yellow Snake dreaming of the Jakamarra/Nakamarra, Jupurrula/Napurrula subsections.
On a visit to Maningrida, the late Koori artist Lin Onus sensed a great deal of excitement amongst the artists over the discovery of new colours. In the 1980s, a green, hitherto unseen, had appeared in some works.’ My understanding in conversations with George Garrawun, who seemed to pioneer the use of green, was that green was a ‘nothing’ colour,’ said Onus. ‘Therefore he was able to experiment with imagery and concepts that would ordinarily fall outside his prescribed moiety (clan) entitlements.’ Les Midikuria and his colleagues at Gotjan Jiny Jirra (Cadell Outstation) showed even greater innovation with colours, including pinks, browns, greens and occasional mauves. Onus also asked Jack Wunuwun about the use of a brilliant orange which had not seen before. ‘He told me the colour was “airstrip” and mined from a small deposit of ochre at the southern end of the Maningrida tarmac.’ All pigments, however colourful, continue to be derived from the land. [iv]
But does the wild exuberant colour seen in more recent Aboriginal painting have the same amount of traditional significance or meaning as ochre? In the seminal book and exhibition of the same name, Art on a String: Aboriginal Threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land, curators and writers Louise Hamby and Diana Young analyse the colours used in Aboriginal jewellery. ‘Colour has an ability to change things.’ they write. ‘Bright colour makes things powerful and dynamic… fat from animals and use of ochres changes the skin colour of people. When applied to canvas or seed beads this is linked to the central concept of transformation in Aboriginal people’s religion. That ancestors could change ‘skins’ during their time walking the earth is indicative of their power. A series of colours therefore may relate to the same person or thing, or ancestor in a different time, place or incarnation.’[v]
The power of transformation, ability to change form and body shape is integral to the mythology of Aboriginal creation cultures. Donald Thomson noted the importance of red and shiny skin to mean power in Arnhem Land with the term marr. Wood is oiled and occasionally varnished to give lustre and reflection back to the viewer – a quality noted as significant to Aboriginal people from the top end and throughout desert regions by anthropologists for generations.
The great colourist painter Emily Kame Kngwarreye pushed the use of colour to extraordinary new dimensions in her luminous paintings of her home country of Utopia in glimmering shades of yellows, pinks, reds, greens, blues and deep purples. Her extraordinary ‘last series’, painted with a broad priming brush just two weeks before she died, reduced the canvas to vibrant, energetic minimalistic fluorescent strokes. Her use of colour brought about not just comparisons to the subtle play of colour and light in the work of Monet, but also to that of Abstract Expressionist artists such as Rothko and de Kooning. In part the comparison is not as far-fetched as it may seem; for these artists were influenced by Navajo sand paintings, and Kngwarreye came out of a long tradition of ceremonial ground as well as body painting. The vibrant purple, pink and yellow wildflowers of Utopia were crushed to add bursts of colour to the ochre palette of such ground paintings. Kngwarreye also held knowledge of a closely guarded pink ochre site, like Queenie McKenzie of Warmun who applied her canvases with her signature pink; she covered her tracks when gathering this pink ochre, so that it remained for her use alone. So the vibrant pinks, yellows and violets of the Utopia palette are therefore as ‘traditional’ as the earth tone palette of the ochre painters of Arnhem Land and the Kimberley.
The custom of priming the canvas with black also assists in giving canvases added depth and power of colour. In the APY Lands blue represents the colour of waterholes reflecting the sky and also Christianity, purple and pinks together are much admired colours – associated with sunsets and also wildflowers. Red, notes Hanby, demonstrates ancestral power, but may also express dangerous or unstable states – or one where change is imminent. Also bright red is attractive and seems to come forward spatially.[vi] Red is a hugely predominant colour in the work of the APY artists. Also the countryside and its myriad changes are reflected in art: greens appear in works often following periods of rain when the desert bursts into bloom. Additionally, the freedom afforded artists with the new variety of colour offered by acrylic paint is a positive thing that should be celebrated. All Aboriginal artists work with the aim of getting the best quality work produced: Arnhem Land painters continue to paint in ochre on bark, for the majority, because it still works the best for their needs. Their imagery and the fineness of the rarrk, for example, the cross-hatching technique made famous by artists such as Maningrida’s John Mawurndjul and those before him, works best using a fine stick or paintbrush, in ochre on bark. Working in acrylic on canvas just does not have the same impact. The same could be said for the Kimberley schools of painters, many of whom continue to dig, grind and paint with ochre, as their ancestors have done for thousands of years, which comes in a surprising variety of colour and tones. The colour and texture of the ochre pleases them in both its tactility and tonal qualities.
| Yvonne Newry, Cattle Creek, 2012, ochre on canvas, 76 x 76 cm. |
‘Colour is what sets apart the paintings of the past decade from the APY realm, and that realm is in truth a landscape of colour: the brick-red of the rocks at dawn, the bright green of desert oaks in storm season, the grey of tree trunks burned to ash by fire. The late-dawning acrylic era brought those blazing hues to canvas. It is hard not to trace the strong appeal, and immediate success, of the art of the APY lands to this distinctive feature, this “colour rhythm”. Nicolas Rothwell[vii]
| Janet Nyunmitji Forbes, Tjitji Kutjara, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 102 cm. |
For the desert painters, particularly those from Yuendumu, Utopia, Papunya, and the APY Lands, the bright colours afforded by acrylic paint have given their artistic practice a joyous burst of life. They are able to render their landscape in evocative, emotional depictions of dreaming stories, titles deeds to country, song cycles, mythology and law, in a palette ranging from bright and sunny to moody and dark, through paint on canvas. Acrylic paint dries quickly, almost instantly in the desert sun, and artists are able to paint comfortably, sitting outside in small groups of friends and family, singing, gossiping, philosophising, remembering their childhood and parents and grandparents, of days gone by, time spent hunting and foraging for the sweet bush tucker, travelling through remarkable lands filled with tales of animal men and women, giants, spirits and other mystical beings.
Kukula McDonald captures the flash of yellow on her beloved totemic black cockatoos, the vibrant burst of orange and pink of a sunset over the MacDonell Ranges, the veridian green of Eucalypts, the cobalt blue of a Papunya sky.
| Kukula McDonald, Looking for the Other One, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 91 x 61 cm. |
The subtle purples, pinks, yellows and oranges, highlighted by white dotted outlines, snake across the canvas in meandering lines depicting the epic Two Sisters Travelling Story in the work of Elaine Lane Warnatjura, from Papulankutja.
| Elaine Lane, Minyma Kutjara Tjukurpa: Two Sisters Travelling Story, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 121 x 60 cm. |
Contemporary Papunya Tjupi artists embrace colours including mauves, pinks and cool apple greens, as seen in the work of Candy Nakamarra, and deep purples and blues, as seen in Martha Macdonald Napaltjarri’s work, as well as the earthy palette of their forebears.
| Candy Nakamarra, Kalipinypa, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 71 cm. |
Utopia artists continue the work of their predecessors, the great colourists Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Minnie Pwerle, by expressing their love for and knowledge of country in vibrant bursts of colour and rich, deep palettes. Minnie Pwerle’s granddaughter, Charmaine Pwerle, continues to paint her grandmother’s body paint designs in a rich and varied palette.
| Minnie Pwerle, Awelye (Women’s Ceremony), acrylic on canvas, 105 x 90 cm. |
| Charmaine Pwerle, Awelye (Women’s Ceremony), 2012, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 70 cm. |
The artists from the APY Lands, such as Tjala Arts, in Amata, South Australia, have now become famous for their wonderful work with a closely aligned palette of red, orange and yellow, a particular favourite of the formidably prodigious Ken clan.
| Nini Mervin, Ngayuku ngura – My Country, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 101 cm. |
And one of the most significant, senior APY artists, Kunmanara Palpatja, depicts his sacred inherited Wanampi mythology in the most beautiful range of pinks, violets and yellows, comprising all the light and shade inherent in the tale, the beauty and violence of the creation stories indicated in every brushstroke loaded with colour. The work of the artists of Tjala is becoming increasingly colourful.
Aboriginal art is as much about re-birth as it is about continuing tradition: the adaptability of Aboriginal culture, along with the strength of its traditions, is the reason Aboriginal people have survived, when they were repeatedly pronounced doomed for extinction. Art is the most powerful reflection of human society that we have. The variety of the use of colour in Aboriginal art is an assertion of both their traditions and adaptability. The natural awareness these artists display as colourists of the highest level is becoming increasingly recognised. It is our great fortune that we have the opportunity to view the works of these artists; these great artists of colour.
[i] Paddy Japaljarri Stewart to Geraldine Tyson, assistant art co-ordinator, Warlukurlangu Artists, interview with Susan McCulloch, April 1996, in Susan McCulloch & Emily McCulloch Childs, McCulloch’s Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The complete guide, McCulloch & McCulloch, 2008.
[ii] Nicolas Rothwell, Painting the song of the land, The Australian, 29 October 2009.
[iii] Vivian Endicott Barnett, Kandinsky: A selection from The Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum and The Hilla von Rebay Foundation, AGNSW and touring, 1982, p.10.
[iv] Susan McCulloch & Emily McCulloch Childs, McCulloch’s Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The complete guide, McCulloch & McCulloch, 2008.
[v] Louise Hamby and Diana Young, Art on a String: Aboriginal Threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land, Object – Australian Centre for Craft and Design Melbourne Museum and touring, 2001.
[vi] ibid.
[vii] Nicolas Rothwell, Painting the song of the land, The Australian, 29 October 2009.
© Emily McCulloch Childs & Susan McCulloch 2012