Lin Onus

Week 5

Author: Ms Margo Neale, tribute

A tribute to the celebrated artist Lin Onus who died prematurely in 1996 aged 47. Onus had a remarkable career, from motor mechanic and political activist to maker of marvellous, witty and original paintings and sculptures. He was also widely loved and respected for his compassion and willingness to lead the cause of Aboriginal advancement. He was a cultural terrorist of gentle irreverence who bridged divides in a way in which very few are able.

Fruit Bats 1991

polychromed fibreglass sculptures,

        polychromed wooden disks,
        Hills Hoist clothesline
All have a cross-hatching design painted on their wings.


Detail;

Every bat is hand-made and they all have different features and expressions. There are over 100 hundred bats hanging upside-down on a typical Australian looking and iconic washing line. It was said that it really brings the Aboriginal culture and art into our Australian backyard, per say. Even though Aboriginal art has and will always be apart of Australian history and culture, I think that people don't really relate to it, as not many understand it. But I think that it does really bring Aboriginal art to our world, as it is in our 'backyard' but we just don't see it that much.

Maralinga 1990


fibreglass, pigment, plexiglass, paper stickers

Week 4 - Artists

Ricky Maynard

He is a photographer of black people, in their homes, their lives and their country. He talks about the 'Black War' which drove black people living in Tasmania to the Flinders Island. And European history tells that the people in these parts were going extince and dying out, but Maynard says that this is a lie and this is only white people's history not their history. And he claims that the people living on the Flinders Island were a strong group and that their culture was very much alive and not going extinct at all.
He says that white people did this so that it would seem as if black people were disappearing and that they wouldn't have to explain about where they had gone. And this is much of what his photography is based around, this was like a record of the people and their lives.

Here are a select few images of his works;


Broken Heart, 2005
from the series; Portrait of a Distant Land
Gelatin silver print

"When we left our own place we were plenty of People, we are now but a little one."

I think this is a very touching image, as you can feel the pain and lost and suffering that this man is going through, you can almost see the heartache and how much he has gone through to be where he is. I get a feeling of loss and abandonment when I look at this image.

Link; Stills Gallery,Ricky Maynard,http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/maynard/,viewed 10/08/2011 

A little information on Ricky Maynard;

"Ricky Maynard was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1953. He is a self-taught photographer who initially began work in the industry as a darkroom technician at the age of sixteen. In 1981 he undertook a photography course at Hobart Technical College, Tasmania to further his knowledge of chemistry and optics.

Maynard worked as trainee photographer at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Canberra from 1983, and studied photographic optics at Reid TAFE College, Canberra in 1984. He was selected as one of the photographers of the After 200 Years project in 1985 and worked as the Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Hobart in 1987.

Maynard was employed as a contract photographer for AIATSIS from 1989 and first exhibited his photographs in Narragunnawali at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space that same year. In 1990 he was the recipient of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board Grant from the Australia Council, which enabled him to undertake a year's full-time study as part of the degree program in Documentary Photography at the International Centre of Photography, New York.

Maynard's photographs were included in Balance 1990: Views, Visions, Influences at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane that same year. In 1992 he established a freelance business, Jollygood Productions Studio, in Adelaide. Maynard participated in Urban Focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from the Urban Areas of Australia at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra in 1994. That same year he was awarded the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography for his black deaths in custody series No More Than What You See (1993), which was later exhibited at Stills Gallery, Sydney.

Maynard returned to Sydney in 1995 as artist-in-residence at the University of New South Wales. In 1997 he held the solo exhibition Urban Diary at Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney. Maynard's photographs were included in the exhibitions Endangered Species at Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria and Off Shore-On Site (part of the Festival of the Dreaming, Olympic Arts Festival) at the Casula Powerhouse, Sydney that same year. Maynard received the Australian Human Rights Award for photography in 1997. He is a founding member of M.33 Photoagency, Melbourne.

Artist statement — Ricky MAYNARD

This body of work embraces all of what the endeavour of photography is. In giving compassionate understanding for black deaths in custody it required a truthful accuracy with insight. They carry messages of our survival, not only of man's inhumanity to man, but a feeling of what it's like to be born black.

These pictures will live on in history, showing the moment to itself, showing what needs to be changed and hoping some day we can look back and see how far we have progressed as a society."

Link; Real Audio, Ricky Maynard,http://nga.gov.au/retake/artists/00000008.htm, viewed 10/08/2011.

Doreen Reid Nakamarra

When Doreen paints it makes her feel better as a woman and as a part of this world. She is able to share her stories of Dreaming and her husband's country through her paintings; “It’s women’s dream,” says Nakamarra, whose first language is Ngaatjatjarra. “When I paint it, I feel good. Strong.”
She only began painting when she was in her 40s, which is quite common for Indigenous people, as art is seen as something the older people would do, not for younger ones. The explosion of Nakamarra’s work followed the death of her husband, George Tjampu Tjapaltjarri. Before he died, George passed on to his wife a women’s dreaming associated with his country at Kintore, which Nakamarra now paints. This is why she now paints a woman's dreaming, from her husbands country.


The Rockhole Site of Wirrulnga, 2007
122 x 153cm

She uses a similar pattern for many of her paintings, as her 'style' to show you the land of a woman's dreaming.

"The lines in the painting represent the surrounding tali (sand hills) in the area around Wirrulnga. A group of ancestral women once gathered at this site to perform the dance and sing the songs associated with the area. Wirrulnga is known as a traditional birthing site for the women of the area, and while the women were at Wirrulnga a woman of the Napaltjarri kinship [group] gave birth to a son who was a Tjupurrula. While at Wirrulnga the women also gathered the edible berries known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin ... These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper."

Link; Collection Search, Doreen Reid Nakamarra, http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=163800, viewed 10/08/2011

Australian Art Collector, Doreen Reid Nakamarra; Shimmering Lands, http://www.artcollector.net.au/DoreenReidNakamarraShimmeringLands, viewed 10/08/2011 

Tjukurpa - Anangu culture

Week 3

video: About Tjukurpa

video: Creation story

video: Bush foods

video: Working together

video: World Heritage

'Tjukurpa Katutja Ngarantja' | Tjukurpa above everything else

Tjukurpa is the foundation of Anangu life and society. Tjukurpa refers to the creation period when ancestral beings, Tjukaritja, created the world as we know it, and from this the religion, Law and moral systems.
Tjukurpa is not written down, but memorised. It is a cultural obligation to pass on this knowledge to the right people. Ceremonies play an important role in the passing on of knowledge. Specific people or groups in the kinship system have responsibilities to maintain different sections or 'chapters' of Tjukurpa. These chapters may relate to a specific site, or a section of an iwara (ancestral path) and this knowledge is carefully passed on to people who have inherited the right to that knowledge either through their birthplace, or through having earned the right by progressive attendance at ceremonies.
Tjukurpa is taught and remembered through specific verse of inma (songs), site related stories, ritual dances or rock art. The iwara (ancestral paths) are recalled in long sequential lists of sites, sometimes including sites beyond country which have been visited, and including sites belonging to other people. Tjukurpa may also be recorded in physical forms such as ritual objects and some objects are created for a specific ritual and then destroyed, and others are very old and passed on from one generation to the next. These objects are extremely important, and knowledge of their form and existence is highly restricted. They are not discussed in front of children, and may be specifically restricted to men or women.
Tjukurpa is also recorded in various designs and paintings, such as the 'dot' paintings of the Western Desert region. Designs are often sacred and their use may be restricted to specific groups or individuals. Some sounds are associated with particular Tjukurpa, for example the sound of the bullroarer is associated with sacred men's ceremonies. It is for this reason that Anangu don't want bullroarer objects sold to tourists.

Tjukurpa and park visitors

While Anangu welcome visitors to the park, they ask that you respect the importance of the place. For Anangu an essential part of 'keeping the Law straight' involves ensuring that knowledge is not imparted to the wrong people and that access to significant or sacred sites is not gained by the wrong people, whether wrong means men or women, Piranpa (non-Aboriginal) visitors or certain other Anangu. It is as appropriate for Anangu to care for these places as it is for non-Aboriginal religions to care for their churches, sacred precincts and relics. Even inadvertent access to some sites may be sacrilegious.
Within the bounds of appropriate access, Anangu want visitors to understand how they interpret this landscape through Tjukurpa/Wapar, and believe it will enhance their experience.
Anangu explanations of the park's landscape form the core of interpretive materials prepared for visitors. Information about Tjukurpa/Wapar can be foudn throughout the park as well as in the following parks notes.


Link; http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/uluru/culture-history/culture/index.html