Vernon Ah Kee

Artist:


Unlinke Richard Bell, Vernon Ah Kee's work is both beautiful as well as political. In the works below Ah Kee makes the connection between the Germany and his own country.

Consent, selling; fire; burning; consent 2003

Leading Indigenous artist Vernon Ah Kee is known for his incisive critiques of White Australian culture. In the Cant Chant exhibition he takes on the iconic subject of the 

beach and casts a critical eye on its special role in forming Australian identity.

pushes aside the common sense of the beach as a destination for leisure, relaxation, and fun, and presents it as a cultural battleground. As the Cronulla riots demonstrated, racism remains deeply-rooted in the Australian psyche. Casting themselves as Indigenous, white yobbos wearing such slogans as '' attacked more recent immigrants.

Cant Chant includes surfboards painted with north Queensland rainforest shield designs as well as a video installation featuring dead boards (waterlogged surfboards) blasted by guns, and Aboriginal surfers.

Cant Chant is an Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane touring exhibition. - http://www.artscentre.blacktown.nsw.gov.au/past-event/cantchant-vernon-ah-kee.cfm

'Cant Chat', 2007-9.

'Cant Chat', 2007-9. 

Richard Bell

Artist/ Art Activist:


Richard Bell is an over-the-top political artist who's work really speaks for itself. He is an activist who uses art to get his point across, and for the most part it is successful. I think this is the most appropriate way for him to do it, and it works. Shocking art grabs peoples attention in all the right ways. This kind of stuff needs to be there to help people to understand things from different point of views. 

Many of Richard Bell's works can be found here:
http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artist/richard-bell

Bells Theorem:
http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/great/art/bell.html

'Scientia E Metaphysica' (Bell's Theorem), 2003.

'Judgement Day' (Bell's Theorem), 

2008.

'Kick Some Body Else', 2008.

Bran Nue Dae

Movie:

An adaption of the 1990 musical by Jimmi Chi, Bran Nue Day was released in 2010. A humorous musical about a boy named William who is training to be a priest. Himself and some other boys steel from the kitchen at his boarding school. Willie admits to it and takes the blame, but decides to run away before he can be punished. He finds 'Uncle Tadpole' in Perth who offers to help him get home to Broome. Together they find there way, after some laughs, only to have some surprises in the plot at the end.

It's Not Just Dot Art

Artist:

The making of an exhibition: Emily Kame Kngwarreye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTY4Sd0FFo

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal woman from Utopia in central Australia who began to paint on canvas when she was about 78 years old. In the 8 years before her death in 1996, she produced a staggering output of over 3,000 canvasses, some of which are now valued more highly (in monetary terms) than the work of most other female Australian artists. - http://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/2142/emily-in-japan-making-of-an.html

Kame Colour II, 1995' (below) is warm and exciting. It depicts the absurdness of woman's traditional body markings, and is a perfect example of Aboriginal work which is not reminiscent of traditional 'dot paintings'. It was also part of the Spirit of the Land exhibition, however I liked it so much I decided to look into Emily's work further.

'Big Yam Dreaming', 1995.

 Arlatyey Dreaming, 1995.

Sprit in the Land Exhibition (Adelaide State Library)

http://netsvictoria.org.au/spirit-in-the-land/

Exhibition:


So enough about things which have long past, however important they may be.

This is an exhibition I went to with a friend recently and would highly recommend to anyone! Even those of you who aren't big fans of Aboriginal art. However it wasn't just Aboriginal art being exhibited, it was Australian art in general. This meant that there was a lovely variety in the styles of art. It was also great to see Australian art exhibited together without prejudice. The exhibition was, not only free, but I left as a different person.... and I enjoyed it so much that I even bought a souvenir in the gift shop so I could take a memory of the exhibition home with me. There were so many exciting paintings in the Sprit in the Land exhibition I'm afraid I'd be here forever just talking about them, so I'm going to show you my favorites. 

The first two we seen were both my Rover Thomas (Joolama) and were both very traditional in the style of art from the Kimberly region (large blocks of colour, very limited palette) however they both had an extremely different feel to them. The first piece was 'Gula Gula', 1989 (below) which felt natural and bright, it made me feel happy and at ease. It looked like an arial view of the land, and Rover Thomas is well known for his paintings of East Kimberly landscape.

The second of Rover Thomas work we seen was called 'Bedford Downs', 1984 (below). Right away this paining felt dark and gloomy. It was uninviting and had a negative feel. Then, in reading the caption, I came to find that it was depicting massacres which had happened in that region and were particularly horrible. I found it to be quite amazing that I got all these feelings about this painting, before I'd even read the caption. I had no idea what the painting was about, however I knew everything at the same time because of how it made me feel. The painting was so well depicted, in all its abstraction, that it nearly didn't even need the caption at all. However this painting really emphasises the feelings produced when reading about the massacres. 

Lin Onus was born of Yorta Yorta and Scottish decent. I like his work 'Ginger and my third wife approach the roundabout',1994 (below) not only because it's visually exciting, but because it mixes traditional work with realist styles which I find very interesting. It's addressing the gap between Aboriginal and Western people. The sand represented was unbelievably detailed with millions of different coloured dots layered upon each other and the creatures represented are actually painted with the intricate crosshatching, restricted palette and natural pigments reminiscent of works from the Arnhem lands. 

Dorothy Napangardi's 'Sandhills of Mina Mina, 2000' (below) speaks for itself really. With beautiful colours, and unimaginably intricate patterns this piece undoubtably represents the sand dunes it depicts. The thing about this piece that I love more than anything else it's feeling of movement. Without it, I don't think it would represent 'sand dunes' half as well. However, when viewing this work in the gallery, I found it hard to focus on due to the amount of information in the work and the intricateness. 

Albert Namitjira

Artist:

"Albert Namitjira was the first indigenous artist to paint and exhibit professionally in Western style. He painted his country and was both prodigious and successful, producing approximately two thousand pictures and founding a school of painting that continues today."  http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/namatjira-albert.html 

Albert's work really highlights the rugged beauty of the Australian outback while also depicting many native trees and plants with detail. He highlights these details throughout his paintings by skillfully using high contrast in shadowed and detailed areas. This involves the use of black, rather than dark browns, or darker hues of the same colour. 

The Queen herself was actually a fan of Albert Namitjira and in the 1950's he actually became and Australian citizen, something which was very rare in that period of time. However this meant that he no longer had the right to be an Aboriginal person.

Australia Post's stamp design in the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Albert Namitjira;

Rabbit Proof Fence

Movie:

The stolen generation refers to the forced removal of children who were of both Aboriginal or Torrens-Straight Islander and European decent, by the Australian Federal and State Government.

‘Follow the Rabbit-Proof fence’ is a novel that was published in 1996. It recounts the writer’s -Doris Pilkington- personal account of what her mother, aunt and their cousin experienced as children who were part of the Stolen Generation. In 2002 the novel was produced as a film called; “Rabbit-Proof Fence” which follows the same story of Molly (the authors mother), Daisy (the authors aunt), and their cousin Gracie’s experience, escaping from the Moore River Native Settlement mission to return home to Jigalong, and to their families. This movie is fantastic, enlightening and educational, and is perfect for someone with little understanding of Aboriginal culture in order to gain insight. It showcases the public’s lack of knowledge and understanding about the aboriginal culture, and therefore aboriginal art.

This movie not only brings awareness about the stolen generation and hence Aboriginal history, but it helps to create an appreciation for Aboriginal culture, and their understanding for our land, and for each other. Their cultural environment was one of family and of love, and their understanding and appreciation for the land we share is astounding. During Mr Rudd’s speech he tells the story of Nanna Nungala Fejo, an eighty year-old Aboriginal woman who was part of the stolen generation, and her earliest memory before she was stolen from her family. “She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night. She loved the dancing.” This love and understanding of the land shows through in their artworks. Many Aboriginal works being of their homeland or of the landscape alike. Rabbit-proof fence entices the viewer to understand the Aboriginal culture and art, and embrace it significantly. The Aboriginal peoples have a better understanding of our land than we ever will and this shows through their works completely and unmistakably. Our shared land is showcased in their work, often serving as the centerpiece rather than the background. This is something to be respected, and as a viewer of such an enlightening movie I now understand that.