A Coherent Opinion On Art

Ned Kelly is considered to be a folk hero and is remembered as one of Australia’s most significant people because he stood up to corrupt police officers, unfair laws and biased government. Kelly is immortalized in Sidney Nolan’s ‘Ned Kelly’ collection of 27 paintings that re-count his daring exploits with the law. Nolan was sympathetic to this story as he, himself, was a fugitive from the law and, using various Australian landscape scenes as a backdrop, transcended his own conflict onto the canvas to make the series a success.

In Namatjira by Scott Rankin, with Trevor Jamieson and Derik Lynch Published with Ngapartji Ngapartji Namatjira was Australia’s most famous Indigenous, watercolour artist and the first to achieve commercial success, but his story is hardly known.

The identity of Australia as a place comes from both its physical features and the atmosphere, which is often created by its physical appearance. Three artists who have depicted the Australian landscape in different styles are Arthur Streeton, John Olsen and Sally Morgan. Streeton’s works are in a realistic but lively style typical of the Heidelberg school. He was intent on recreating the light and warmth of the land. Olsen and Morgan’s works, on the other hand, offer more abstract interpretations of the land. During the 1960s and 1970s, Olsen captured the essence and the energy of the landscape with his bold and bright brushwork whilst Morgan’s work from the 1980s portrays Australia from an indigenous perspective, which she achieves through her use of Aboriginal symbolism and cultural imagery.

Aboriginal art has many inspiring aspects such as the link that it has to the past of Aboriginal people, kinship the dreaming, land and reconciliation. Charlie Colbung is the artist behind a large beautiful acrylic painting exhibited in the Plantagenet community resource centre, in Mount Barker Western Australia. Colbung’s painting is called ‘Past to Present’ and represents the journey to reconciliation of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Full of depth, texture, colour and numerous artistic elements to entice audiences to engage and analyse his lovely art work as well as critically reflect on the art and the meaning behind the painting. Charlie Colbungs painting Past to Present is a beautiful example of Aboriginal art work.

Onus used a range of diverse mediums, methods and styles in his work; that illustrated qualities of his work being derived from Western culture. He then added layered images evolving from his Aboriginal heritage. An example of this range of techniques is seen in one of his most famous paintings ‘ Barham Forest’. In this artwork he went beyond the traditions of Aboriginal art, yet his work is informed by classical Aboriginal artistic concepts.

An example of this “revolutionary conceptualism” (Ferell, 2012) is observed in Figure 2, a piece of artwork called “The Elders of the Tribe”, by Elizabeth Durack (1953). Overall, the image depicts the elders of a Warlpiri kinship group sitting around a distinctive ground pattern, representing their ancestral origin in Central Australia (Durack, 2015). The wavy and distinctive insignia convey the elders being “swept away by the wind” (Durack, 2015), in addition to the concentric circles, connoting to various spiritual events that occurred at various campsites within the Warlpiri community. Moreover, Durack (2015) further explains that the artwork represented a “conversion from red and white ochre to acrylic medium”, supporting the artistic transition from traditional Aboriginal ground art to Western-inspired acrylic paintings.

In “Untitled (dismay, displace disperse…)” six 30x30cm oil paintings individually detail a certain negative aspect of colonialism in a chronological fashion. “DISMAY” shows how the Aboriginal people are disregarded as human beings, the second image “DISPLACE” while accompanied by an image of British settlers setting down a flag comments on the British taking control, “DISPERSE” comments on how Indigenous people were moved out of their homes to make way from British development, “DISPIRIT” comments on how the continuation of settlement and lack of support for Aborigines left them to give up and lose motivation, “DISPLAY” comments on how Indigenous people were treated as animals and some were sold for entertainment purposes and finally “DISMISS” accompanied with a black image concludes this work by commenting on how British people have achieved their goal of settlement and as a result has had a detrimental impact on the well-being and culture of the Indigenous people. In “Possession Island” Bennett appropriates Samuel Calvert’s “Captain Cook taking possession of the Australian continent on behalf of the British Crown AD 1770” and comments on the chaos of colonialism and disregard for Indigenous people. He layers the painting with slashes and dots of red and yellow paint but leaves a central black skinned figure

He was adept at painting his own country and the sacred sitesit contained. In a publication titled Albert’s Gift, Brenda L. Croft discusses the life of Namatjira and the nature of his naturalistic watercolor landscape paintings. According to Croft, Namatjira was “lauded as the perfect example of assimilation, un-made as a black man, and refashioned as a white man, then discarded altogether” (Croft 2009: 70). Some saw Namatjira’s mastery of European art techniques as evidence for the potential success of the assimilation policy--the desired policy for the the absorption and elimination of Aboriginal identity. While Western critics and commentators alike dismissed his works as derivative, interpreting them as “a symbol of assimilation and the subordination of Aboriginal traditions to introduced forms” (Murphy 265). However, as Croft regards, Namatjira painted “not so much the things he saw but what he felt inside and how he loved the MacDonnell Ranges.” (Croft 2009: 70). The subject matter depicted by Namatjira speaks of his intimate attachments to country; thus, informing the relationships between Central Desert Aboriginal people and the presence of the ancestral forces that shape the

(16) Nolan’s ‘First class marksman’ (Image 5.) painting sold for $5.4 million at auction, by NSW gallery. Which made Nolan’s Kelly painting ‘Australia's most wanted’ Together with Sidney Nolan, Russell Drysdale created iconic images of the Australian outback. Prior to Drysdale, landscape painting had concerned itself with the pretty country and not ventured far from the coast. (11) He chose to portray the difficult life on the land, the ugly side of hardship and the empty vast interior so few had previously seen.(12) Drysdale's career changed when in hospital his drawings and talent was noticed. This led him to study at Bell art school and began the foundation for his future life as a painter. Both realistic and expressive, his works signaled a complete break from the early landscape traditions that had dominated Australian art in the 18oo’s.(15) The 1940s greatly affected by the Second World War saw social and cultural changes, which affected the whole nation. Drysdale had lost an eye which made it impossible for him to enlist in the army and so he decided to serve his country by painting during the war. (17) War themes, drought, bushfire, rural hardship and indigenous Australian’s were common subjects for Drysdale, and in these paintings the viewer is confronted with disturbing aspects of

Bobby is effectively the guide throughout the book, and a mediator between the European and Aboriginal cultures. Bridges the gap and creates understanding between the reader and author.

Whether or not Aboriginal people had left the land to dry for itself is not our concern here. Nor is the aim of this paper to prove the English were right in claiming sovereignty over Australian land, since there is much proof they hadn't even been the first Europeans to meet with "terra nullius". Nevertheless, as history speaks for itself, there's clear evidence Aboriginal people endured immense changes during colonization years, on the land where they stood, cultures unshaken, for thousands of years, before Europe had a say in that. Indeed, what we aim for is to examine some ideas perpetrated along the years in regards to the devastating effects that emerged once the first ship of colonizers arrived.

His use of a cowboy and a group of American Indians in the painting, despite his aboriginal heritage, could be because of his desire to compare the parallels between the two, and propose the idea that both Aboriginal and American Indians were seen as the ‘bad guys’ despite it being obvious that they were the marginalised

The art piece that I chose to critique is the sculpture of a figure kneeling down and getting shocked. It is located on campus near the Morris University Center(muc). When I first saw this sculpture it caught my attention immediately, because of how gruesome the piece was. I feel like I don’t have a good understanding of what the sculpture represents, but it seems like it would raise plenty of controversy, due to its erotic features. It seems like the artist was venting his emotions when he created his idea. The sculpture is fairly large in size, which makes it noticeable, among the other art pieces on campus. The sculpture media consist of wood and concrete, and metal mostly. The individual is keeling down toward the west and is supported

When Governor Arthur arrived on the shores of Tasmania there were only “…five thousand at first contact” where they were the last “full-blood” Aborigine (p.129). The governor was given instructions to “…to protect them in their persons” and “…lawful means prevent and restrain all violence.” (p.130) Reynolds stated that the governor’s intentions could not “…survive the brutal realities of the bush” (p.132) where settlers were being killed by colonies of Aborigines in their “…so called districts.” (p.131) Reynolds stated that Governor Arthur communicated through his advisors for advise on how to handle this solution and even offered a settlement for the Aborigines with a “…remote corner of the island strictly for them” (p.133), however this did not go to plan and he became more aggressive with his communications and declared that it was a necessity to drive out the “…black savages from the settled districts” (p.134), Reynolds noted that this decision was agreed upon by the Executive council who declared that they “…regret in advising these measures” but it was an “…inevitable necessity” “…to inspire them with terror” “…will be found the only effectual means of security for the future.”