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.

 

 

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.

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.

Mervyn Bishop

Mervyn Bishop was born in 1945 and is a photojournalist. I admire Photojournalists as they are under enormous pressure to deliver for the newspapers they work for. Doing Photography myself I find that taking perfect photos challenging enough let alone taking them in a certain place by a unforgiving deadline. I admire Mervyn because he is a professional photographer and that’s what I aspire to be. In 1971, Mervyn was named the Australian Press Photographer of the Year and he has continued to work as a photographer. From 1974 to 1980 he worked as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs staff photographer. He visited indigenous communities and documented life at Missions. I admire Mervyn’s work because of his knack for capturing people’s personalities and identities. I also love his use of tone and his use of light and shadow. 

Hermannsburg School & Albert Namatjira

I have decided to research this school because Albert Namitjira interested me and I liked his style of painting. I have also never heard of this school before and I was surprised that I hadn’t judging by how famous Albert Namitjira was.

The Hermannsburg School began at the Hermannsburg mission in the 1930’s which is located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It was established as an Aboriginal mission in 1877 by two Lutheran missionaries from Germany who travelled from Bethany in the Barossa Valley. I found this information especially interesting as I like in Tanunda, which is about five minutes away from Bethany. The two Lutheran missionaries named the mission after Hermannsburg in Germany where they had trained. Here are some photographs of the mission: 

Albert Namatjira was born at Hermannsburg in 1902. He is known for his ability to paint his unique and accurate representation of the land. His watercolours are of a western style and his style became known as the Hermannsburg school of painting. I love Albert’s style of painting because of his use of vivid colour. Many watercolour artists I have seen don’t use a spectrum as large as Albert’s. Here are some of my favourite artworks: 

Christian Thompson

I was looking at the Learn Online site today and I found an artist who’s work interested me greatly from a photography point of view. Christian Thompson’s series ‘We Bury Our Own’ interested me because I found his series beautiful and almost whimsical looking. I was also interested in how he took the photographs and how he edited them. I found this video on the Learn Online website which I found very useful:

http://vimeo.com/44050317

In this video Christian describes the meaning behind the series. The series consists of eight large photographic self portraits and a video installation. The series is a response to the Australian Photographic collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Christian says that “he want’s to generate an aura around his series, a meditative space that was focused on freeing oneself of hurt, employing crystals and other votive objects that emit frequencies that can heal, ward off negative energies, psychic attack, geopathic stress and electro magnetic fields, and, importantly, transmit ideas. ”

I found this quote rather poetic, just like the series. Each photograph is exquisitely beautiful and dramatic and at the same time relates back to Christian’s home in Australia.

 

Artist Research: ProppaNOW

After todays tutorial and reading the latest Artlink magazine I have decided to do some research on ProppaNOW. I have decided to research this as Vernon Ah Kee is part of this group and his work interests me. ProppaNOW was set up in Brisbane in 2003 and is designed to give Aboriginal artists a voice. This group is known for its provocative actions and unique opinions. The current members of ProppaNOW are Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Tony Albert, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey, Laurie Nilsen and Megan Cope.

Later in our tutorial we discussed the issues with political Aboriginal art. The artists in ProppaNOW use bold and political statements that make the viewers guilty in their response. While I think this is a good thing as it makes people think about their actions and sympathise with the creator of the artworks I also think it can be a bad thing. It was pointed out in our lecture that our generation wasn’t directly responsible for the wrong doings of the Aboriginal people. I personally believe that it isn’t our generations fault but we should still try and make a difference regardless. I find most of ProppaNOW’s work to be a little unfair as I feel that aggressive behavior doesn’t really solve anything and more people will listen if they find a more passive aggressive approach.

Here is some of Richard Bell’s Work:

Here is some of Vernon Ah Kee’s Work:

 

Artist Research: Michael Riley

Because I am interested in Photography I have chosen to research Michael Riley. He was born in 1960 in Dubbo and attended the University of Sydney where he studied photography. Riley’s photographs have an emphasis on portraiture and religious iconography. I personally admire Riley’s work because of how he portrays his religious upbringing. I especially like his series Sacrifice (1992). I like these works because while the religious iconography is apparent, Riley still leaves room for ambiguity.  I first viewed this series without looking at the artist statement, so to me I felt that the photographs represented a sadder, darker side to the religion. When I read about it. I learned that this series was based on how Aboriginals felt that they had to fit into non-Aboriginal life and the sacrifices that they had to make. To me this explained the sad look that the photos had. Here are some photographs from the series: