Soft Sculptures: Rhonda Sharp & Marlene Rubuntja

Rhonda Sharpe was born in Alice Springs and creates her artwork at the Yarrenyty-Arltere art centre. She creates beautiful, unique soft sculptures full of exquisite detail. Her sculptures represent life in an around Alice Springs. I think these sculptures are very unique and they look like they each have their own unique personality which I find very interesting. They also look very difficult to make so I admire Rhonda’s skill greatly. Rhonda has won the 3D Telstra award for her sculptures pictured below. Each one of her sculptures represents four different spirits; Sad, worried, frightened and hopeful. These spirits symbolises the realities of town camp life.

 

Marlene Rubuntja was also born in Alice Springs. She grew up in the Amoonguna community just east of Alice Springs. She is the sister to important watercolour artist Mervyn Rubuntja. Marlene began making the sculptures in 2009. She draws inspiration from what she sees around her in daily life at the Yarrenyty Arltere camp. She uses the sculptures to tell stories of her ancestors. I love these two sculptures because like Rhonda’s, they are vibrant and kooky. I have never seen anything like them before and I think they are very beautiful. Like Rhonda, I also admore Marlene’s skill in making these as I have dreadful sewing skills and these sculptures must have taken a very long time to make.

Both of these artists are part of the Yarrenyty Arltere Artists. It is part of the Yarrenyty Arltere Learning centre. The centre began as a response to the social distress faced by families in the area.

 

 

Assignment 3: Essay Idea and Research

I have decided to do my my essay on the effects tourism has had on the Indigenous Australian art scene. I have chosen this topic for my essay because I am interested in how the tourist market sees Indigenous art and how much they really understand it. This course has really helped me to understand and respect Indigenous art and I think it will be incredibly beneficial to the people of Australia if they could gain the same understanding. I am going to write about when tourism first began to impact Indigenous art and how it was done. I will then discuss the issues that tourism causes to Indigenous art in the present day and I will use contemporary artists to reinforce my points. I am thinking of using Richard Bell to do this as he has written about it in his manifesto and in this video. Richard Bell was also the first artist who broadened my horizons on how tourism is affecting the Indigenous Australian population. I will then finish the essay by discussing ways that could be employed to help rectify the problem with the tourism and art market.

Lecture 11: Indigenous Architecture & Design: The State of the Art

– Spinifex country exhibition.

– Understanding of indigenous spaces.

– Dr Elizabeth Grant: Been an Architect and Anthropologist for 20 years. Works on almost all public projects in Australia.

– Indigenous architecture.

– The use of indigenous icons to promote tourism.

– 10 years ago. It was said that Aboriginal people had no built tradition.

– Torres Strait ceremonial hall: all knowledge about how to build it was lost.

– Traditional architecture: Incredible diversity of forms. Socio-spacial use. Very beautiful. Research is going into figuring out how to rebuild them. Emphasis on spatial existence and were environmentally adaptive.

– Indigenous people DID build permanent structures.

– Indigenous people slept in different ways from different groups. Women and children slept together. East – west sleeping very important. Some groups won’t be with each other (avoidance practice).

– Environmentally adaptive: Paper bark repels mosquitos. Fires are lit to also keep mosquitos away.

– Structures relating to ceremony were built.

– Contemporary indigenous Architecture: 1970’s homelands movement. Funding was made to establish housing. Many communities employed architects and builders. Houses were initially one roomed, with no veranda. They got very hot and were filled with asbestos. People build houses themselves using whatever resources they could.

– Wiltja: Designed to be very good for the desert.  Made of steel and was designed to be folded up. Also would get very hot.

– Howroy’s Laverton House: Round house. Walls don’t go to the roof. Only the outside is concrete, the middle is dirt. Concrete was far to uncomfortable to sleep on. Shows that architects have no idea how they lived. Residents moves after 3 weeks.

– 3B Wiltja: Boxed shaped buildings not high enough to stand up in.

– Dome Tents: Really heavy frame with a canvas over the top. 2 sizes, one really big one small. Frame would stay and people would move the canvas.

– Oak valley: Shed tanks. Could be camped underneath them with a source of water.

– Lack of housing, short shelf life, not enough utilities. Needs to be more service delivery.

– Self Built housing: Researched to figure out how Aboriginal people live. The yard is used in certain ways and is very important. Different behaviour during night and day. Sleeping behaviour. Cooking behaviour and other hearth-orientated behaviours. Particular storage techniques.

Design Values: Has to be a connection to country. e.g how high is the building? Are their enough windows? Connection to kin, being part of a social grouping, meeting health and safety needs, allowing information flow.

– Design premise: Use architecture to increase the outcomes for Aboriginal people. There needs to be very good knowledge about peoples cultures, landscapes, objects. Incompetent knowledge leads to incompetent design.

Destiny Deacon

Destiny Deacon was born in 1957 in Mary borough Queensland. She first began taking photographs in 1990 and first exhibited her work in that same year. I find this very admirable as I think it would take a lot of guts to start shooting work and then exhibit it in that very same year. I would be very cautious about showing my first body of work in an exhibition as its a big step to take. She uses many different mediums in her work such as photography, printmaking ,video, installation and performance.  She has shown her work in over 120 exhibitions in Australia and internationally.

Deacon’s artwork is political in nature as she uses photography and film to show public ideas about Aboriginal politics. ‘Blak’ dolls are present throughout most of Deacon’s work. “I think blak dolls represent us as people. I don’t think white Australia, or whatever you want to call it, sees us as people.” Her photographs themselves are very kitsh. They appropriate Aboriginal imagery to show the politics of representation in the history of Australian popular culture.

I personally think Deacon’s images are a little confusing as the meaning of them is sometimes unclear for me, although the meaning of them would certainly be clearer if I saw all the photographs as a series. While I do get a little confused with her work I do find her work quite haunting and I feel its successful of providing an unsettling feeling, like something isn’t quite right. Here are some of her images where I feel this is the case:

Lecture 12: Indigenous Art, and Design in and out of Context// The Aestheticisation of Indigenous Art and Design

– Trevor Nickolls (1949 – 2012)

– Began art career at Australian school of art.

– Creates work about the urban indigenous experience.

– Bill Onus (Demonstrations, asserting Aboriginal identity and educated people)

– People became artists while incarcerated.

– Trevor Nickolls represented a clean brake and something brand new. Late 160’s early 70’s things were changing for Aboriginal people. More activism and direct action.

– Early influence was cartoon comic book art (Disney, Flintstones, Mad Magazines) Liked the “flatness” of the art.

– Without him we wouldn’t have images from Destiny Deacon, Gordon Hookey, Richard Bell. First to mix Aboriginal and western art forms and comic irony facing Aboriginal people.

– Papunya Art: Most well known artistic movement in Australia.

– Borrowed many styles and motifs. He used characters to represent himself.

– Neo-traditional art making but also very contemporary even though it draws on ancient stories.

– Hippie imagery, psychedelic era. Becoming more aware of the earth.

– “Childhood Dreaming”. Based on old bus stops that used to be in Adelaide. Reference to mother and child. Comic book references.

– References cars to Astral travelling.

– Video from Samstag museum website.

– ‘Face the machine time’, 1989.

– Tension between anthropological analysis and art theory and aesthetics. Increasing sense that indigenous art needs to be taken away from museums, anthropological and sociological ways so that it can be appreciated.

– Non-indigenous contemporary art is still dominated by western ideas of aesthetics.

– We need to broaden our own sense of aesthetics. What do we think of art? What is it for?

– Elevating indigenous art as actual artwork not artefacts.

– ‘Face of Australia’, 1988. ‘I fought the law’, 2009. ‘Roving Free’, 1998.

– Widespread belief that when people die they are taken by boat to the Milky Way (Colehole).

– Trevor won the Blake prize for painting. ‘Metamorphosis’, 2001.

 Rover Thomas

Kimberly artist. One of the best known Aboriginal artists. Contemporary artist.

http://www.abc.net.ay/arts/stories/s3107717.htm – ‘Gurrir-Gurrir Balga’.

– ‘Road to Wyndham to see Paddy Jamintji’, 1995.

– Mark Rothko, ‘1957#20’, 1957. 1st time Thomas looked back and thought someone stole his style.

Paddy Bedford

– Started painting later. Worked as a stock worker initially.

– Paints stories to do with Mount King and the Emu and Turkey dreaming.

– ‘Emu Dreaming’, 2003. Detailed description about what the painting represents. Representation of massacres that occured. White rectangle represents mount king. Day and night is echoes on monochromatic tones.

– Very spiritual, symbolic paintings

Lecture 10: Warrick Thornton & Margaret Pomerance

– Indigenous cinema 

– Margaret Pomerance: Co-hosted the movie show. Completed a Bachelor of Arts. Is a writer and a producer. 

– Warrick Thornton: Cinematographer. Directed ‘Samson & Delilah’, ‘The Sapphires’, ‘Green Bush’, ‘Mimi’, ‘Art & Soul’, ‘Stranded’, ‘Mother Courage’. He works across many genres and writes, directs and shoots all of his films.

– Winning the prize for Samson & Delilah put pressure on Thornton “you start designing stories around the red carpet”. In the end its not about the red carpet but the audiences.

– There are many aspects of storytelling before it becomes a film.

– Pressure from production designers.

– Documentary: 1st hand ghost stories that actually happened. Just audio, actors were employed to play the people telling the story. Made people feel more comfortable. De-mythologising big stars. Intensive workshop of how to direct people.

– Filming people in one take. No secrets of editing to trick people. Very simplistic. Becomes more truthful.

– Composition is very important. Like reading a book. Stories are quite different but attention is still demanded. Energy and comfortability. Discovered in the edit.

– Attracted to ghost stories: Sees them in everyday life. Not forcing people to believe. Just beautiful fictional stories. Every one has a different take on what the story means to them, a universal connection. About family and ancestors. Loveable context of ghosts as opposed to scary.  

– Upsurge of Indigenous cinema. Came from a lack storytelling and representation. Younger generations wanting to tell their stories properly. 

– Lots of hard work to make a film. Like learning a new craft. Massive base of knowledge. 

– Early films: Emulating good cinema. 

– Digital Implications: Good quality, instant playback. To much money spent to make it look like film. Production companies tell you what you have to shoot it on. 

– Samson and Delilah and the Sapphires both shot on film. 

– Film Making: Sucked into the red carpet life style. End up not making films and just travelling to film festivals instead. 

– Pre-production: Whats the essence of the film? Make sure creativity happens in that part. 

– “Dances with wolves”. Got into film making to escape Alice Springs. Travelled a lot as camera assistant. Learned cinema speak. Had to learn to respect good cinema. Started shooting documentaries. Applied to film school and didn’t get in.Got in the 2nd year he tried.

– Doesn’t do ad’s and film clips. Doesn’t like being told what to do. 

Fear of failure of the box office: You just have to be careful but also don’t be afraid to take risks. 

– Failure is in your own mind. Not getting into a film festival. Films directed by actors. 

– “I make films that I would wan’t to see”. 

Tutorial Notes

– Aboriginal Art and Culture: The bible of Indigenous Art. 

– Chicago Quick Guide: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools-citationguide.html

Papunya Art Movement

In response to this weeks lecture I have decided to research the Papunya art movement as I feel it is an integral part of my studies and I want to broaden my knowledge in this area.

Papunya was established in the early 1960’s, 240 kilometers northwest of Alice Springs. The settlement is a government settlement that was established as a marshalling point for Aboriginal people who were displaced from their traditional lands.

The first artists collective was set up in 1972 and was called the ‘Papunya Tula Artists’. It was set up by men from the settlement. This collective has been inspiration for many other collectives around Australia. The artwork produced in the collective was seen as a way to keep cultural traditions alive like dreamings and mapping important and sacred sites. In 1972 an art teacher called Geoffrey Bardon was assigned to the school at Papunya. He immediately noticed that important cultural practices were being lost and that the community was dispirited. Bardon encouraged the male elders of the community to paint in their traditional style and they began to make paintings of their Tjukurrpa on surfaces like board and corrugated iron. Bardon supplied acrylic paints and canvas which inevitably lead to the integration of a painting area in the store room of the town hall hut.

The Papunya Tula painting style is characterised directly from the artists knowledge or traditional body and sand painting associated with sacred ceremonies.

Lecture 9:

–       Cross cultural corruption

–       DesArt: Art agency

–       Objects are transformed by art market

–       Erinju art center was established in 2001

–       Jukapa is kept alive through art and by visiting sacred sites

–       1930: Interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous people became more common

–       Sale of art used to help the economy of missions. Modified the beliefs of the community

–       1970’s: Shift in government policies. Land rights and homelands movement

–       Western Desert art movement, cultural achievement. Occurred in 1975 in Papanya. Painting materials were supplied and men were encouraged to paint

–       Spinifex Weaving: Allows women to make a small income based in Alice Spring

–       Amanda Dent: Ensured high level critical attention and assisted in setting up and art centre

–       Erinju artists

–       Tommy Watson

–       Neil Bell revealed growth of sales. Not much money was spent on Aboriginal art in the first year. Sales went up and up each year with senior artists attracting the most money

–       Art Centre: Responsible for cultural management, art…Funded by the artists themselves. %75 of profit to artists. %25 goes back to the arts centre

–       Prices by major artists are booming. Market is over-inflating

– Boom is both a blessing and a curse. Caused tension in community and family tensions. People are buying art at a low price and selling for more. Buying from people who wouldn’t know better.

– High profile artists are targeted by private operators. Artists are exploited

– Artists are encouraged to paint quickly with poor materials. This means the standard of the work isn’t as good as it should be and the reputations of the artists are at stake. Investors become deterred from buying from the artist if the quality goes down etc.

– Erinju council agreed that private dealers could take over. Bad idea. Art centre collapsed and only senior artists were painting. Major art galleries wouldn’t buy artworks because the reputation had been damaged

– Boycotting of Telstra award

Nici Cumpston

Earlier this year I saw an artist speak lecture hosted by Nici Cumpston. Im interested in her work because she hand colours all of her photographs. The skill involved in hand colouring is phenomenal as I have tried it in photography and I find it incredibly difficult. Her use of colour is beautiful and the finished image looks better than the original colour one. She uses a medium format Hasselblad camera and works predominately in film. She works with film because it looks better when its been enlarged due to the higher resolution. She prints her photographs in black and white to make the hand colouring easier. She then uses polymer based paints that are quite transparent to slowly add colour to the image. It would be easier to just take the photograph in colour, but Nici doesn’t want her photographs to look like a normal colour image. She uses colour the alter the light of her photographs, giving them a more atmospheric effect. Here is an example of her work and how the atmosphere is enhanced:

 

These two images are my favourite because of the beautiful colours in them. I think hand colouring really benefits these photographs as the colours are more vivid than normal and really shows beauty of the landscape. Nici Cumpston focuses on any themes in her artwork. She is worried about the protection of sacred Indigenous sites and uses her photography as a way of advocating their protection. I admire her work as there is also an environmental aspect to it.

This photograph was taken in response to the degradation of a midden, a place of sharing and trading goods. The water around the lake is depleting which can be seen clearly in the photograph.

 

Aboriginal Dendroglyphs

In a previous lecture Dendroglyphs were discussed. I found these fascinating as I have never seen them before. I did some research in what their purpose was and I found out that they are used as initiation sites and as tomb stones. Scarred tree’s that haven’t been carved are used for resource harvesting, food implements, shields and temporary shelters.

There are only around about 100 carved trees in their original location. The rest have been removed for farming, forestry or development. Carved trees are found along major rivers, lakes and at significant sites. They are used as a form of visual communication and they mark sites of significance to the Aboriginal people. with burial sites the trees usually mark the grave of an important man. The design that is carved represents the cultural heroes of the man while also providing a path for his spirit to return to the sky world.

There are four main designs of Dendroglyphs: Curvilinear Lines, chevrons (V-shaped designs), figurative Images and scrolls of circles.

Tree carvings are found throughout Australia, but are found most predominately in New South Wales. Lindsay Black wrote a book called “Burial Trees” which I look forward to reading. It was the first book to focus on Wiradjuri tree carvings.