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Sung into Being

Aboriginal Masterworks 1984–94

Sarah Cox
Eyeline 88
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The exhibition, Sung into Being: Aboriginal Masterworks 1984-94 from the Janet Holmes à Court Collection, has been carefully curated by Diane Moon, Curator of Indigenous Fibre Art at QAGOMA, and displays groundbreaking artworks from the East Kimberley and central Arnhem Land regions. From the moment one enters the darkened rooms of the galleries that bookend the exhibition space, one is transported to another world of ancient time and deep spiritual belief. The bold barks and shimmering rarrkhighlight an art form that is both slow and fast: both traditional and contemporary. The works were created by respected elders in remote communities, whose responsibility is not only to educate the uninitiated younger generation and pass on secret, sacred knowledge to the initiated, but to reveal concealed knowledge as responsible leaders in a cross-cultural engagement with non-Indigenous viewers. In visual form, these paintings on canvas, bark and plywood express The Dreaming, the spiritual philosophy of Indigenous Australians, historically derived from an oral based culture, and originally expressed by transformational performance of song and dance in ritual ceremony. In today’s harried, secular world, these timeless tomes of transcendental thought provide an opportunity for the empathetic viewer to pause and reflect, and listen deeply to the art of these senior storytellers.

Painting on canvas to communicate ancestor Dreaming stories is a relatively recent invention that famously evolved out of the Western desert in the 1970s when art facilitator, Geoffrey Bardon first encouraged elders of the Papunya Tula community to reveal their honey ant Dreaming story. Using the contemporary medium of paint on a corrugated wall at the local school, the artists engaged in an innovative form of sharing culture rather than the traditional

Rover Joolama Thomas, Kukatja/Wangkajunga people, c1926-1988, Djundugal (Rainbow Serpent) Dreaming place, 1986

Rover Joolama Thomas, Kukatja/Wangkajunga people, c1926-1988, Djundugal (Rainbow Serpent) Dreaming place, 1986. Janet Holmes à Court Collection.

John Bulunbulun, Ganalbingu people, 1946-2010, Murrukundja Manikay (Song cycle).

John Bulunbulun, Ganalbingu people, 1946-2010, Murrukundja Manikay (Song cycle). Janet Holmes à Court Collection.