It's alive!

Fishes have cross-hatching details

Lin Onus, Guyi Buypuru, 1996. © The Estate of Lin Onus

Photo source: Australian Fine Art Edition

Having not being to attend the lecture and tutorial in week 4, I thought that it would be good for me to catch up on what I missed. I read the article about “Lin Onus: Picturing histories speaking politics,” over again, looked on the Internet for some Yvonne Koolmatrie artworks and this time tried to answer the tutorial questions by myself. While it was different answering the questions on my own and not hearing other people’s point of view, it really did get me thinking and reflect on the things I’ve learned so far. So..here we go…

Yvonne Koolmatrie, Bi-plane, 1994. © National Gallery of Australia

Photo source: abc

When you look at Lin Onus and Yvonne Koolmatrie artworks, you can immediately notice that they have such a distinguished visual language and style. It’s quite different to what we have come to known as traditional Aboriginal art. Instead, these two artists combine the traditional and the contemporary together and by doing so they reveal a different side to Aboriginal art. I really believe that their works are about the reinvention of culture instead about the loss of it because their artworks, as you can see, still revolve around the same beliefs and represent the very same culture. The essence has not changed while the form may be different. Even having the symbolisms of traditional practices such as weaving and the cross hatching within this contemporary looking artworks, I think reveals that it’s certainly not lost but very much alive. I believe in fact that it highlights the exact opposite.

Thinking back on past tutorial discussions from the second week, I think we have already come across this issue about whether the changes happening to Aboriginal art – of it transforming “away” from its traditional form means that it is less authentic or that culture is lost. However, how can culture be lost or how is it less authentic when the essence of the artworks is still very much the same? Only the surface is different - the way that it is represented. Is it because we have been too accustomed to seeing Aboriginal art in its “traditional form” that we limit ourselves in seeing it in different ways and thus consider it to be less authentic? However, I think like any other artist or forms of art, people’s style and way of representation will always evolve over time. As a non-Aboriginal person, I also think that it should be the right or it is the Aboriginal artist’s part in having the choice to define their own culture, instead of non-Aboriginal people doing that for them.

Any ways, while this topic of authenticity and progress of Aboriginal art seems interesting, I’ll reserve that for another post before I start going off track. So going back to the tutorial question…I think by using the traditional forms like the weaving and cross hatching in the contemporary urban context, it really brings Aboriginal culture to live by creating a link between the past and the present. Aboriginal culture is alive and it's real. It shows that Aboriginal culture is not something in the past or an old, ancient culture but it still exists and lives today within our very own society. I think it really does highlight the continuity of the Aboriginal culture and beliefs.