A B R I E F O V E R V I E W
The Indigenous peoples of Australia are the oldest continuous culture in the world, dating back more than 65,000 years. The Aboriginal people do not have a written language, so relied on passing on culture and knowledge through oral story-telling, rituals and visual depictions. These visual depictions were created by incising ceremonial tools, painting on rock walls with ochres and other natural pigments, painting their bodies, and impermanent sand drawings.
There are over 250 different Aboriginal language groups and over 800 different dialects. Each of these language groups has unique cultural practices, and so this is reflected in their art in terms of subject and overall aesthetic. Aboriginal people paint subjects that are culturally derived and spiritually relevant. In Arnhem Land, the artistic style is often reflected through its use of ochre colours, 'raark' (or cross-hatching) lines typically painted with a fine hair or thin reed, and its depiction of spirit figures and animals often showing the internals organs of an animal. This is commonly referred to as an x-ray style. In the Central and Western Deserts of Australia, the dominant style is referred to as dot art. Unlike the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land, they do not paint figuratively, instead they ‘map’ country from an aerial point of view. The artworks capture certain parts of country that are culturally and spiritually relevant to the individual; these are often paintings of their Dreaming stories. Dreaming stories hold the mythology of the Aboriginal people, and are passed from one generation to the next through custodianship.
HIGHEST PRICES ACHIEVED BY ABORIGINAL ARTISTS
In 2007, a major artwork by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, a founding member of the Papunya Tula art movement and celebrated artist, sold for AUD$2.4 million. Two months later, a major work by Utopia artist, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, titled Earth’s Creation sold at auction for the highest price ever achieved by an Australian female artist, AUD$1.056 million. In 2017, this same painting sold for AUD$2.4million.
