What constitutes Aboriginal art? Is it simply an art style, or is it about the artist who makes the work? Traditional Aboriginal art has for many thousands of years been a way for the Indigenous people of Australia to record and tell their history, dream-time and culture. Traditional Indigenous works often are comprised of dot patterns which form animals, plants, and landscapes. Contemporary Aboriginal art, also popularly painted with the dot technique, has recently become much sought-after as a globally recognised commercial art form. However, this shift in context and cultural significance presents an array of issues: is the commercialisation of Aboriginal art augmenting or exploiting Aboriginal culture? Who has the right to work in this style? When does a pattern of dots cease being a technique and become the theft of everything the Indigenous people value?
Many non-Indigenous artists take care to respect Aboriginal culture and symbology. There are many others, however, who make use of these images without a thought for what they mean to the Indigenous people. Imants Tillers is an artist famous not only for his ‘tiled’ paintings, but also for his long association with appropriation. The most notable occurrence of Indigenous appropriation is his painting The Nine Shots (1985), which stimulated controversy when he was accused of using sacred imagery from Indigenous artist Michael Nelson Jagamara’s painting Five Dreamings (1984). While Tillers says he did not believe he had done anything wrong by making reference to Indigenous art in his work, he was censured for appropriating symbols and imagery sacred to the Aboriginal culture without an elder’s permission. Nelson and Tillers were encouraged to collaborate on an artwork to settle their differences, thus creating the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Imants Tillers and Michael Nelson Jagamara, Hymn to the night, 2012. Acrylic on 165 canvas boards, 277 x 532cm. Courtesy Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane.
