Saturday, December 4, 2021

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.

6 comments:

  1. The energy and spirit of Aboriginal art stirs the soul. Amazing program.

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  2. Such an ancient indigenous people. I had no idea about the 200 languages.

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  3. I was interested to note the fact about the 200 languages as well. Beautiful art too. I imagine much of the origin of it involved using native plants and earth for the various colours.

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  4. There was no discussion of the inks they used. I think the presenters were more cultural historians than knowledgeable art people. But I assume too, that natural pigments were the earlier paint and dye materials.

    The number 200 surprised me, too.

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