Aboriginal Dream Era art gains credit

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Eastern contemporary art is defined by an arduous drive to defy the universality pinning down its Western counterpart. Symmetrical patterns of expression are in their prime, and a sprinkling of tradition counterbalances the modernistic feel. But even as international acknowledgments of Eastern talent continue to grow, a dismantling of the Western contemporary art pantheon remains far-fetched.

Aboriginal paintings are the exception. Never schooled in conventional artistic values and products of a marginalized culture, the Aboriginal artist has, ironically, reached a par with internationally acclaimed artists. American and European collectors delight in their unique collections of Aboriginal sand mosaics, elevating the art form from an ethnic specialty to an internationally recognized discipline.

The fact that Aboriginal works are appendages of tradition is shown in the traveling tour on exhibit at the Ardiyanto Gallery Yogyakarta, which ends today, by the Australian Gallery. Dots and lines efficaciously portray traditional symbolism.

To the artistically uninformed, each painting may appear to be nothing more than a meaningless nexus. Yet the paintings depict stories of ancestral beginnings, a faithful testimony to the people's history. Stories in scratchings and line formations are long a continuing tradition of the Aborigines to pass on customary beliefs and instill trust, the time known as the Dream Era. Stories such as these have been the legacy to pass down through sand mosaics.

The Australian natives would capture the essence of a lost age in sand mosaics. Sand mosaic paintings would cover as much as 5000 square meters in forms of symbolic dots. The painters would have a Dream Era theme suspended in thought before endowing expressions on canvas. All of the titles bear the Dream Era tag.

A cluster of small dots and adjoining lines in their pattern packaging symbolize dynamic activity, forming expressive intricacies at one point and geometrical rigidities at another. Bush Hen Dreaming by Rita Pwerle, the youngest of the 14 artists in the show, related as much. Thousands of tiny dots of white and orange surfaced through the blackened canvas. The illustration was of shooting ray beams emitting from a single dot, gradually diversifying into spectral illuminants. The arrangement and adjoining of dots creates meticulously set short lines.

Violet Petyarre makes a fusion of dots and lines to form spiraling ingenuity on four canvases. The yellow and red swirls of Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming works in a circular motion, from the smallest dot of a circle at mid-point making the rounds to cover an entire spread.

Aboriginal paintings have traditionally been marked by utilitarian colorings of nature, such as red, yellow, white and black. The infusion of modern colorings neutralized the banality in the works. Colors known to them were added to coloring mixtures. An example is Abbie Loy's entry in the line of color- inspired works of Bush Hen Dreaming. Dots in yellow and white form conspicuous geometrical lines, both straight and crooked, on a brown canvas. A glance would conjure up visions of a topographical map, or an aerial view of the land

Similar imagery is part of Kathleen Petyarre's Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming. The bird's eye view is present in all the works. "This probably comes from the Aboriginal habit of walking with head bowed," said exhibition curator David Cossey.

The tag of contemporary art came with Geoffrey Bardon almost three decades ago in 1971 in the small aboriginal village of Papunya. The Caucasian school teacher instilled pride within his students for cultural arts, pushing them into the art of drawing non-Westernized formations. Not long after, adult Aborigines took up the brush to outline the formations. Initially they had to use acrylic paint on shards of wood, and then shifted to painting designs on synthetic cloth. Finally, canvas bore the art.

Several aborigines formed what came to be known as the Papunya Tuba Artist Pty. Ltd, the first organization founded to market the art works. Also known as the Western Desert Art Movement, it earned the Aboriginal artists their financial independence. Huge successes inspired aborigines in different territories. There is now a chain of organizations in the territories of Utopia, Yuendemu, Lajamanu and Balgo Hills. "Each group encapsulates a dream and will bear its visualization in reality," Cossey said.

Contemporary Aboriginal art boasts its own curious connection to Indonesia -- artists of Utopia adopted the batik technique to depict the Dream Era in Aborigine mythology. First taught to the Aboriginal artists in 1977, batik became more popular when three Aborigines won scholarships to study the technique in depth. They still use the canting, the iron dipper used to apply wax in the batik process, in their works. Several artists, including the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Kathleen Petyarre, are internationally acclaimed for their batik works.