Jack Evans, BTN Reporter: It’s the oldest art form on the planet and yet… considered one of the most important contemporary art movements of our time. So what exactly is First Nations art? Apart from this and this. But surely there’s a more definite answer.
Jayda Wilson, Curator: I would say like First Nations art can be anything, and can come from like traditional ways of making to very contemporary ways of making.
Temaana Sanderson-Bromley, Artist: I’ve always thought of it as a spectrum. So one long line, one end you have traditional Aboriginal art, and the other end you have contemporary and one piece can be anywhere along that line.
First Nations art is as diverse as First Nations people are, which is quite a bit. There are hundreds of different language groups, who for more than 55,000 years have been making art reflecting their unique culture.
Jayda: I guess for me, when I think about traditional ways of making it so old people and our elders creating on country and their stories, their paintings, reflecting country
Temaana: I think of traditional art as more so using ochres. So ochres from the earth onto things like rock faces, bark onto our bodies.
The shift to more contemporary styles of First Nations art only started in the 20th century. In 1934 First Nations people at the Hermannsberg mission in the NT were taught how to paint with water colours. One of those artists was Albert Namatjira, who’s artwork became famous around the world.
Another significant movement for First Nations artists was in 1971. When Students in Papaunya, just north of Alice Springs, were encouraged his to transfer the dreaming stories they were dotting in the sand onto canvas. Giving us the first paintings to use symbols and dots which have become synonymous with Aboriginal art. But while the use of dots and symbols might be common across the country, the style and meaning will be different depending on who the artist is and who their language group is.
Today there are many contemporary First Nations artists using a variety of materials and mediums to create their art.
Temaana: You might have something like digital art, which is very contemporary, very modern, and somewhere in between, you might have something like a canvas.
Jayda: film making to recreate stories and glass blowing to tell those stories, and the in between, like ceramics and sculpture and even sound is a way of storytelling and words, print, poetry, I think that’s all can be put into that box of contemporary ways of making
So what connects all First Nations art? Well it’s got something to do with why the art was created in the first place… and that is to tell a story.
Iteka Sanderson-Bromley, Artist: So for me, like the the core, like importance of Aboriginal art is to tell stories. We didn’t have a written language. Everything we passed on with knowledge was passed on through art and ceremony and dance and stories and everything. So it’s important that when we do this art. Art, it’s not just like a really nice piece of artwork that it has that story, and for me, it’s still the same stories that my people have been telling for 1000s of years. It just looks a little bit different,
Temaana art has been a part of our culture for 100,000 years, over 100,000 years. So it’s always been something that’s been a part of it, and it’s been almost like a way of connecting to it as well. So we have so many stories that are from our country, up in the Flinders and York Peninsula and Simpson Desert. And by using those stories and implementing them into our art, it’s a way of connecting to those stories, also to our land and culture.
If you haven’t worked it out yet, Iteka and Temaana are both First Nations artists living and working in South Australia. They also happen to be brother and sister.
Iteka: I had an amazing art teacher who forced me out of my comfort zone a bit, and I kind of got an understanding that art wasn’t just being able to, like, draw like a realistic person or doing these really realistic landscapes, that it was kind of broader than that, and that I could make it what I wanted to make it, and then being really passionate in about my culture, I was able to link the two, and kind of went on from there.
Recently they teamed up with the Adelide Festival Centre to run workshops with South Australian First Nations Students to create art works using silk and ceramics.
Student 2: so our school was one of the schools that did the workshops with tamana, and it was done mostly with, like our Sastra Academy. So there were a couple students from Woodville that did it as well, not just Lefever. And, yeah, it was really cool. We just kind of sat down for a lesson in the morning and just did some art, which was great. I’ve done a lot of art and stuff. I like painting. I do a lot of painting at school, but never done silk painting before.
Student 4: When he said we were gonna be painting on silk, I didn’t know what he meant, because I’ve never done it. But it was fun.
he pieces are currently on display at the Adelaide Festival Centre, included in an exhibition called “Who Are We?
Student 1: Walking in through the doors and just having my art and all the other students are just displayed on the walls. It’s right there. I didn’t expect it to be all sort of all fancy.
Temaana: through this exhibition and through the workshops that were done, it was a really cool opportunity for the students be able to explore that who they are as aboriginal people, what makes up their identity, and put that into an art piece. And for some of them, that might have been their first artwork, or especially the first artwork in this, I guess, medium, medium, yeah, so silks and ceramics.
Iteka: we just really wanted to be able to show South Australia, or Australia, whoever’s coming here, like all these incredible young people that are doing all these awesome things with their lives, and they’re making this really beautiful art piece that is telling you about their life and about their story.
Student 3: creating my first artwork, it was very hard, but I thought about my family and who made me who I am today, and I thought of like my country as well.
Student 1: So my silk painting that I created is about my nan’s connection with her community and how she tells her story and shares and speaks up about our people
Student 2: I did on experiences I’ve had recently. So one of them was about a camp I’d just been on, the kids on country camp where we go out to remote area
The exhibition is being held along side Our Mob and Our Young Mob which showcase South Australian First Nations artists of all ages and the stories they have shared through their art.
Student 2: It’s just cool that, like people will be able to come in and see all this amazing art.
Student 3: I would like to become an Aboriginal dot painting artist like my Nana, go through her path and try and make my family proud and succeed as an Aboriginal artist.
