Australian adventure last evening

 

The Fowler Museum of UCLA presented an amazing hour of screen printed art created by aboriginal artists of the Top End, in northern Australia. It's in connection with a new in person exhibit at the museum.

I was puzzled that it was zoomed at 9 pm EST, early evening in LA where the physical exhibit is up. Usually these events take place early afternoon here. I found it was originating in Australia in real time. A hot summer  Saturday afternoon there.

There are five art centers where the artists work and teach. They introduced themselves, explaining what their language is-- there are over 200 aboriginal languages-- and spoke to us also in English. They hope to make the trip to LA to visit the exhibit, and one artist said his plan was also to meet native Americans and share their cultural experiences.

Here are the artists whose work is featured

And here are their locations

And some of  their screen printed art on line

And here are artists at work. There are two sisters working together in some images

Some of the action images are blurry because I was getting screenshots from a video, but I think they're worth seeing.

The images are about the creation of Australia, about iconic animals and birds, and are still very modern in style.  Virtuosic work, as you'll know if you've tried screen printing.  Not your t-shirt and poster work!

Just a reminder, if you fancy imitating any of the motifs: many of these images are sacred to the culture they come from, so it's good to be respectful of that in the context of your own art.

This was a thrilling event, and I gathered from the respectful presentation that there will be care taken not to appropriate the art nor exploit the artists, always a concern when richer nations get involved.