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Aboriginal Prints And Printmaking
part 2 By Adrian Newstead, President of The Australian Indigineous Art Trade Association Aboriginal prints and printmaking is a relatively new addition to Australian Aboriginal art. The first print was carved on the linoleum torn from the floor of a prison cell and fashioned with a spoon in 1965. Many early Aboriginal prints, especially those with an overt political message, relate to the violence of oppression, yet the majority of more recent prints are deeply concerned with translating ancient aboriginal cultural iconography into a new and exciting medium. Aboriginal people, having been introduced to print by white artists and studios eager to share their skills, have found the medium to their liking. Prints are relatively inexpensive to produce, can provide a steady trickle of income and can be given away to friends and family that other contemporary art forms cannot. Today Aboriginal artists are able to work at print studios in almost every capital city of Australia. In addition artists and art coordinators have been encouraged and assisted to set up their own presses in many of the remote communities throughout the country. All Aboriginal art, including prints; is in its essence political. It is a statement about Aboriginal ownership of land and culture. Having grown from a non-literate cultural base, Aboriginal society has traditionally communicated though art, song and dance. All Aboriginal people think of themselves as artists and participate in art through cultural activities within their own communities. There is in Australia over 250 individual Aboriginal tribes, each with its own specific iconography which was traditionally used in cave, body and bark painting, low relief ground sculpture for ceremonial grounds as well as on a wide variety of objects and artefacts. Today however, Aboriginal people have chosen to use their art to disseminate their message beyond their tribal boundaries and even their own country. These artists, being born of an earth-connected culture, deal with themes about their land and spiritual beliefs, totemic and spiritual exemplars, contemporary society's separation from nature, the struggle for land, and their social and economic suffering within the dominant culture. Exhibitions of Aboriginal prints have in recent years travelled all over the world. Several have been a focus for cultural exchange between Aboriginal and other indigenous artists, giving them the opportunity to work alongside one another sharing skills and stories and their common concerns. Australia and many other countries have a shared history of oppression of their native people while becoming multicultural societies overlaid with a dominant western culture. In discounting the values of our indigenous peoples we have abused the land, causing all but irreparable damage to our natural heritage. The members of the Australian Art Print Network hope that by sharing the prints of Aboriginal Australians with people all over the world they will play their small part in moving ever closer to a more caring common cultural identity while at the same time assisting the artists they work with to achieve their economic and cultural goals.
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Contact Us @ sales@aboriginalartprints.com.au or Telephone (+61) 2 9332-1722 © Australian Art Print Network © AIATSIS & ATSIC from the Biographical database of Australian indigenous visual artists published by Discovery Media. |
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