To the Outback and Back — Aboriginal Art in Alice Springs

Australia’s aboriginal art features distinctive and unique elements that are full of unspoken meanings. They convey the contemporary reinterpretations of the native worldview.

I visited an art gallery, Yubu Napa, in Alice Springs. This gallery features all kinds of aboriginal themed handicrafts, besides the display of finished and yet-to-be-finished artwork.

The first impression of the art there is the prolific engagement of dots in the paintings. As a collective these dots seem to convey motion, fluidity and the enormous possibilities in the living universe. I seemed to sense the dialogue behind these paintings, as art that brings forth the tensions between the identity of being an aboriginal artist and the commitment to contemporary notions of aesthetic creativity.

I have learned previously that the aboriginal art at the Outback serve both expressive and pragmatic purposes that concern survival. The feeling I got from viewing the aboriginal art of today is that the expressive elements are primarily vehicles for artistic exploration and emotional engagement.

While some of the symbolisms may be traced to their traditional usage and meanings in aboriginal art, the patterns and compositions together show the conscious breakaway from the aims with which the aborigines painted in the wild. The aboriginal art here takes the fundamental meanings in aboriginal worldviews and render them in what, to my untrained eye, seemed to be abstract manners.

Photo: There are standard representations of nature in aboriginal art. The feathers above show respectively the male bird (left) and the female bird (right).

The art being featured in an art gallery, they certainly come with a commercial dimension in the creative endeavor. They are done by artists that had proper training in schools, and so the techniques are markedly more sophisticated than the ones we saw at the cultural center in Uluru. The work-in-progress (photographs forbidden) that sit at the studio area are telling as well, as they reveal a given artist’s working thesis.

This following is a snapshot of the beautiful art that I saw at the Yubu Napa.

Compare this to the ones on display at the Cultural Center in Uluru:

The address of Yubu Napa is 65 Hartley St, Alice Springs NT 0870, Australia.