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NAVIGATE: The Exhibition Prints | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Images of many of these historic objects now in museum collections have been incorporated into the recent paintings by contemporary artists like Joseph Dorante, Dennis Nona and Richard Idagi and in 1990’s printmaking and sculpture by Nona, Alec Tipoti, Andrew Williams, David Bosun and Billy Missi. The scriffito or incising seen in the surrounds of these old masks is also found as decoration on old pearl shell ornaments, drums, bamboo tobacco pipes, stone spinning tops, shell knives and effigies. 15 The patterns are specific to each object and tradition, clan and tribal group, and can be interpreted in terms of specific meanings and affiliations. How Torres Strait islanders relate to one another depends directly on who they are related to by birth. Each island has its own traditional stories and creation myths. The stories are usually accompanied in the telling by a genealogical history which contextualises the listener’s position within the kinship system. 16 The incised ornamentation thus acts as a signature of the artist; an embellishment of the meaning of the artwork; and a signifier of the artist’s clan, tribe and place of birth. Today’s Torres Strait Islander artists can be roughly divided in to traditional community, urban and traditional urban artists. 17 The artists of the Mualgal Minnarral collective are considered to be part of the latter grouping. They comprise artists who have studied on the mainland and have gained knowledge of new mediums and techniques which separate their art from strictly traditional artists yet they are vitally concerned with traditional themes as well as interpreting contemporary events. Many of their prints tell an entire creation story while the background patterns specifically place the artwork within their own particular cultural group amongst the many Torres Strait Islander cultures. While traditional community artists produce works in accordance with established cultural rules with little scope for free play or personal vision, traditional urban artists such as those of the Mualgal Minnarral collective exhibit a flexibility born of a wider technical repertoire and an exposure to broader artistic influences. Because today’s printmakers are generally young and lack the cultural knowledge of their Elders, they tend to portray changes in the contemporary life of islanders in much the same way as islander dancers, at the end of the nineteenth century, accommodated contemporary events and incidents within their own village communities. These artists also portray stories referenced from traditional histories, interviews with their Elders, and access to old artefacts and pieces illustrated in books or held in various collections to which they are able to gain access. Many of the prints exhibit layers of meaning in a similar way to mainland Aboriginal art. As an example of this, an islander song, collected and translated by Margaret Lawrie, recalling the similarity between water spray thrown up from a rock and the shape of a dhoeri headress, is indicative of the layers of meaning contained in the visual imagery associated with many of their artworks. 18 The artists who worked with Margaret Laurie in the 1960’s; Ephraim and Ngailu Bani, Segar Passi, Locky Tom and Kala Waia, did not continue to explore their art after their brief flirtation with western art techniques. 19 This was left to a new generation of artists, the great majority of whom have been trained by attending Indigenous art courses at Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Institutes throughout Queensland. The most notable of these was the course started by Anna Eglitis at the Cairns TAFE college and the printmaking facilities that have grown out of it. The influence of these graduates has spawned a vibrant new art movement in much the same way that Jeff Bardon’s art classes in the central desert community of Papunya did in the early 1970’s. The difference being that Bardon worked with old men and Eglitis taught and stimulated a younger generation. To this point in time these artists and their acolytes have produced acrylic paintings and relief prints on archival paper. Several artists , including Dennis Nona, the leader of the Mualgal Minnarral collective, went on to attend art colleges in larger cities, in Nona’s case the Canberra School of Art. This inevitably meant a period of physical isolation and dislocation from family and friends which was often traumatic. However, concurrent with his exposure to western art practice and technique Dennis Nona and others that followed him moved in to the exploration of traditional story telling. Next NAVIGATE: Back to top | The Exhibition Prints | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
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