Whitford Fine Art
6 Duke Street St James's
London SW1Y 6BN
020 7930 9332
info@whitfordfineart.com
DREAMINGS: A Selection of Works by Contemporary Aboriginal Artists
23 Feb - 6 Mar 2009
Described by the renowned art critic Robert Hughes as 'the world's last great movement', Aboriginal art has been increasingly gaining attention from museums and collectors worldwide.
Australian Aboriginal art may also lay claim to being the oldest living art tradition in the world, with paintings in rock shelters dating back to 20,000 years. Much of this historic art relates to stories of the Dreamtime, or 'Creation Period' in Aboriginal belief, when important ancestral beings formed the land and created the people, plants and animals. These ancestral beings, often depicted in the art in human, animal, plant or combined forms, are said to have taught the Aboriginal people their laws and ceremonies.
This more traditional artistic medium eventually took on a modern form in 1971, when Geoffrey Bardon, a visiting teacher, encouraged senior aboriginal elders to paint their Dreamings on canvas, to preserve their traditional stories, which were previously drawn on the desert sand and were now given a more permanent form.
Recognising the transformation Aboriginal art has undergone over the last 10 years - from traditional 'dot' paintings to the development of an independent and unique painterly form - Whitford Fine Art presents a selection of innovative artists embracing this style.