Academic literature on the topic 'Australian contemporary painting'

This paper investigates a select number of examples in which largely non-literate First Nation peoples of Australia, like some First Nations peoples around the world, when faced with a judicial challenge to present evidence in court to support their land title claim, have drawn on their cultural materials as supporting evidence. Specifically, the text highlights the effective agency of indigenous visual expression as a communication tool within the Australian legal system. Further, it evaluates this history within an indigenous Australian art context, instancing where of visual art, including drawings and paintings, has been successfully used to support the main evidence in native title land claims. The focus is on three case studies, each differentiated by its distinct medium, commonly used in indigenous contemporary art—namely, ink/watercolours on paper, (Case study 1—the Mabo drawings of 1992), acrylics on canvas (Case study 2—the Ngurrara 11 canvas 1997) and ochre on bark, (Case study 3—The Saltwater Bark Collection 1997 (onwards)). The differentiation in the stylistic character of these visual presentations is evaluated within the context of being either a non-indigenous tradition (e.g., represented as European-like diagrams or sketches to detail areas and boundaries of the claim sites in question) or by an indigenous expressive context (e.g., the evidence of the claim is presented using traditionally inspired indigenous symbols relating to the claimant’s lands. These latter images are adaptations of the secret sacred symbols used in ceremonies and painting, but expressed in a form that complies with traditional protocols protecting secret, sacred knowledge). The following text details how such visual presentations in the aforementioned cases were used and accepted as legitimate legal instruments, on which Australian courts based their legal determinations of the native land title.

Aboriginal Australian contemporary artists create works that express indigenous traditions as well as the unprecedented conditions of global modernity. This is especially true for the founders of the Spinifex Arts Project, a collective established in 1997 to create so-called “government paintings”: the large-scale canvases produced as documents of land tenure used in negotiations with the government of Western Australia to reclaim expropriated desert homelands. British and Australian nuclear testing in the 1950s displaced the Anangu juta pila nguru, now known to us as the Spinifex people, from their nomadic lifeworld. Exodus and the subsequent struggle to regain lost homelands through paintings created as corroborating evidence for native title claims make Spinifex canvases not simply expressions of Tjukurpa, or “Dreamings,” but also artifacts of the atomic age and its impact on a culture seemingly far from the front lines of cold war conflict.

This article had its genesis in a family photograph of my paternal grandmother's parents, Rowland and Rebecca Walton (see Figure 1). I knew little about them apart from their English origins, but their appearance was intriguing: definitely stalwart pioneers, but what kind of pioneers? Popular cultural knowledge in Australia provides one central image of the pioneer, summed up concisely by Katharine Susannah Prichard: ‘It will be a nation of pioneers, with all the adventurous, toiling strain of the men and women who came over the sea and conquered the wilderness.’ Prichard's notion was directly inspired by a painting, The Pioneer (1904) by Frederick McCubbin (1855–1917), described by Tim Bonyhady as ‘one of the most influential paintings of the emigrant experience in Australia’. Utilising a triptych fonnat, it recounts (in the words of a contemporary reviewer) ‘its own legend of the useful toil, the homely joys, and destiny obscure of the pioneer, who does not live, as the rude cross in the third panel indicates, to see the growth or share in the prosperity of the fine city seen in the background of the panel’.

Rock-art researchers have long acknowledged the importance of discerning superimposition sequences as a means for exploring chronology. Despite their potential for reconstructing painting events and thus informing on a site's production sequences, the social significance of superimpositions and their associated meanings have been little explored. In the Kimberley Region of northwestern Australia, interpretations of superimpositions as an analytical lens have often lingered on the ‘negative’ connotations of this practice (e.g. to destroy supernatural power embedded in previous paintings and/or to show cultural dominance). As a result, it has been proposed that the overpainting of previous images was tantamount to defacing, leading to the proposition that new images constituted a form of vandalism of older art. In this paper, a sample of rock-art sites from the northwestern and northeastern Kimberley is analysed with the aim of grounding the study of superimpositions in more nuanced practices, leading researchers to contemplate the role they played among populations within the same area. It is argued here that superimpositions brought together past and present experiences that served to reinforce the links between contemporary art production and the inherited landscape.

This article explores my relations to Country through colour. It is accompanied by three art pieces I have recently painted. It has a particular focus on my changing relationship to Biripi and Ngunnawal countries in Australia and the ways this relationship was impacted by my travelling to the “Learning How to Inherit in Colonized and Ecologically Challenged Lifeworlds” symposium in Victoria, British Columbia. As depicted in the paintings, my understandings of Country are coloured by the heritage-­‐based connections to land that continue to shape my contemporary Aboriginal identity, my growing engagement with and understanding of the contemporary common worlds I inhabit, and the discussions of place and identity that took place at the symposium.

The role of artistry in transformative maintenance of law and custom is a theme widely researched and discussed in Aboriginal arts related literature. However, it is the aim of this paper to contribute to a wider discourse about learning and economic participation in remote Australia, and in particular the role of multimodality as a significant asset. The paper draws from relevant literature and two case studies; one from Keringke Arts, and one from Eastern Arrernte teacher and artist, Kathleen Kemarre Wallace. In customary form, multimodality combines and recombines various modalities — including dance, song, sand drawing, body painting and design, storytelling, stories, rhythm, petroglyph and ochre-painted rock art — enabling the intergenerational teaching and learning of rich cultural heritage in ways which connect that experience to the law and custom of the homelands. Multimodality, as it is used in this paper, draws on the concept of ‘form-relationality’; the way various modalities are combined and recombined, as elements which together describe a body of knowledge and yet separately provide myriad detail. Although beyond the scope of this paper, multimodality is also a mediating influence between contemporary and customary elements and contexts. This paper considers the complexity of multimodality as an asset in a contemporary arts market.

Between late 1979 and early 1980, Australian artist Jenny Watson painted a sequence of six works, each with the title A Painted Page. Combining gridded, painted reproductions of photographs, newspapers and department store catalogues with roughly painted fields of color, the series brought together a range of recent styles and painterly idioms: pop, photorealism, and non-objective abstraction. Watson’s evocation of styles considered dated, corrupted or redundant by contemporary critics was read as a sign of the decline of modernism and the emergence of a postmodernism inflected with irony and a cool, “new wave” sensibility. An examination of the Painted Pages in the context of Watson’s interest in autobiography and her association with the women’s art movement, however, reveals the works to be subjective, highly personal reflections on memory, self and artistic aspiration. Drawing on Bahktin’s model of the chronotope, this paper argues for a spatio-temporal reading of Watson’s Painted Pages rather than the crude model of stylistic redundancy and succession. Watson’s source images register temporal orders ranging across the daily, the seasonal and the epochal. Her paintings transpose Bahktin’s typology of quotidian, provincial and “adventuristic” time into autobiographical paintings of teenage memories, the vicissitudes of the art world and punk subcultures. Collectively, the Painted Pages established a chronotopic field; neither an aggregation of moments nor a collaged evocation of a period but a point at which Watson closed off one kind of time (an art critical time of currency and succession) and opened up another (of subjectivity and affective experience).

This edition is the first issue of Dewa Ruci’s Journal, in which all articles are in English. We deliberately changed the language of publication to English to facilitate information delivery to a wider audience. We realize that English is the official language for many countries rather than other languages in this world. The number of people who have literacy awareness and need scientific information about visual and performing arts regarding the archipelago’s cultural arts is also quite large.The decision to change the language of publication to English does not mean that we do not have nationalism or are not in love with the Indonesian language. This change is necessary to foster the intensity of scientific interaction among writers who are not limited to Indonesia’s territory alone. We desire that the scientific ideas outlined in Dewa Ruci’s Journal are read by intellectual circles of the arts internationally. We also want to express our scientific greetings to art experts from countries in New Zealand, the USA, Australia, Europe, especially Britain, and other English-speaking countries such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Canada. Of course, a change in English will also benefit intellectuals from countries that have acquired English as a second language, such as Malaysia, Brunei, Israel, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. In essence, Dewa Ruci’s Journal editor wants to invite writers to greet the scientific community at large.We are grateful that six writers can greet the international community through their articles. The first is Tunjung Atmadi and Ika Yuni Purnama, who wrote an article entitled “Material Ergonomics on Application of Wooden Floors in the Interior of the Workspace Office.” This article discusses office interiors that are devoted to workspaces. The purpose of this study is to share knowledge about how to take advantage of space-forming elements in the interior design of a workspace by utilizing wooden floors like parquet. The focus is on choosing the use of wood by paying attention to the elements in its application. This research result has a significant meaning in the aesthetics, comfort, and safety of wooden floors in the workspace’s interior and its advantages and disadvantages.The second writer who had the opportunity to greet the Dewa Ruci Journal audience was intellectuals with diverse expertise, namely Taufiq Akbar, Dendi Pratama, Sarwanto, and Sunardi. Together they wrote an article entitled “Visual Adaptation: From Comics to Superhero Creation of Wayang.” This article discusses the fusion and mixing of wayang as a traditional culture with comics and films as contemporary culture products. This melting and mixing have given birth to new wayang creations with sources adapted from the superhero character “Avenger,” which they now call the Avenger Wayang Kreasi. According to them, Wayang Kreasi Avenger’s making maintains technical knowledge of the art of wayang kulit. It introduces young people who are not familiar with wayang kulit about the technique of carving sungging by displaying the attributes in the purwa skin for Wayang Kreasi Avenger. This creativity is an attempt to stimulate and show people’s love for the potential influence of traditional cultural heritage and its interaction with the potential of contemporary culture.The next authors are Sriyadi and RM Pramutomo, with an article entitled “Presentation Style of Bedhaya Bedhah Madiun Dance in Pura Mangkunegaran.” This article reveals a repertoire of Yogyakarta-style dance in Mangkunegaran, Surakarta, namely the Bedhaya Bedhah Madiun. The presence of this dance in Mangkunegaran occurred during the reign of Mangkunegara VII. However, the basic character of the Mangkunegaran style dance has a significant difference from the Yogyakarta style. This paper aims to examine the Bedhaya Bedhah Madiun dance’s presentation style in Mangkunegaran to determine the formation of its presentation technique. The shape of the Bedhaya Bedhah Madiun dance style in Mangkunegaran did not occur in an event but was a process. The presentation style’s formation is due to a problem in the inheritance system that has undergone significant changes. These problems arise from social, political, cultural, and economic conditions. The responses to these problems have shaped the Bedhaya Bedhah Madiun dance's distinctive features in Mangkunegaran, although not all of them have been positive.Hasbi wrote an article entitled “Sappo: Sulapa Eppa Walasuji as the Ideas of Creation Three Dimensional Painting.” This article reveals Hasbi’s creative process design in creating three-dimensional works of art, named Sappo. He got his inspiration from the ancient manuscripts written in Lontara, namely the manuscripts written in the traditional script of the Bugis-Makassar people on palm leaves, which they still keep until now. Sappo for the Bugis community is a fence that limits (surrounds, isolates) the land and houses. Sappo’s function is to protect herself, her family, and her people. Sulapa Eppa means four sides, is a mystical manifestation, the classical belief of the Bugis-Makassar people, which symbolizes the composition of the universe, wind-fire-water-earth. Walasuji is a kind of bamboo fence in rhombus rituals. Eppa Walasuji’s Sulapa is Hasbi’s concept in creating Sappo in the form of three-dimensional paintings. The idea is a symbolic expression borrowing the Lontara tradition's idiom to create a symbolic effect called Sappo.Mahdi Bahar and his friends wrote an article entitled “Transformation of Krinok to Bungo Krinok Music: The Innovation Certainty and Digital-Virtual Contribution for Cultural Advancement.” Together, they have made innovations to preserve Krinok music, one of Jambi’s traditional music themes, into new music that they call Bungo Krinok. He said that innovation is a necessity for the development of folk music. In innovating, they take advantage of digital technology. They realize this music’s existence as a cultural wealth that has great potential for developing and advancing art. The musical system, melodic contours, musical grammar, and distinctive interval patterns have formed krinok music’s character. This innovation has given birth to new music as a transformation from Jambi folk music called “Bungo Krinok” music.Finally, Luqman Wahyudi and Sri Hesti Heriwati. They both wrote an article entitled “Social Criticism About the 2019 Election Campaign on the Comic Strip Gump n Hell.” They explained that in 2019 there was an interesting phenomenon regarding the use of comic strips as a means of social criticism, especially in the Indonesian Presidential Election Campaign. The title of the comic is Gump n Hell by Errik Irwan Wibowo. The comic strip was published and viral on social media, describing the political events that took place. In this study, they took three samples of the comic strip Gump n Hell related to the moment of the 2019 election to analyze their meaning. From the results of this study, there is an implicit meaning in the comic strip of pop culture icons' use to represent political figures in the form of parodies.That is the essence of the issue of Volume 16 Number 1 (April Edition), 2021. Hopefully, the knowledge that has been present in this publication can spur the growth of visual and performing art science in international networks, both in the science of art creation and in scientific research of art in general. We hope that the development of visual and performing art science can reveal the various meanings behind various facts and phenomena of art life. Therefore, the growth of international networks is an indispensable need.Thank you.

Thesis (M.V.A.)--University of Sydney, 2009.
Title from title screen (viewed November 26, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Visual Arts to the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Degree awarded 2009; thesis submitted 2008. Includes bibliographical references.

Towards a peripatetic practice: negotiating journey through painting investigates painting as a way of comprehending lived experience of travel. The project develops from curiosity about journeys and their potential for bringing the artist into encounters with the world, and proximate to its issues and concerns. Aims of the project focused on peripatetic practice as a means of redirecting a personal experience of rootlessness towards connecting with others, and considering and communicating the complexity of cross-cultural experience through painting. Objectives as such were to investigate through practice the function and form of peripatetic painting, and to document this through film and writing. The study acknowledges travel as an ancient way of knowing the world and takes inspiration from the paradigm of the nomadic storyteller as exemplified in the Bengali tradition of Patuya Sangit (scroll performance). With a sense of the capacity for painting to provide spaces of connection and empathy, the study draws on the writing of John Berger and Suzi Gablik, exploring a confluence of ideas about the evolving social role of the artist. Key influences are historic and contemporary peripatetic creative practices, which include the writer Freya Stark, the colonial painter William Simpson, and the artists Phil Smith and John Wolseley. The project also incorporates methodological approaches which borrow from anthropology, situating the artist as observer, participant, and ultimately, agent. Practice in this context is immersive, and takes on social, interactive dimensions for which making paintings becomes a means of knowing and questioning the nature of cross-cultural experience. Explorations took the form of increasingly immersive journeys in Australia, India and Pakistan and a series of paintings utilising extended scroll formats with additional outcomes of documentary films. As the key research spaces for practice-led research, the scroll paintings employ pencil, collage, watercolour and oil, and a metaphoric fusion of styles and techniques of painting and drawing, notably Persian miniature and life portraiture as a means of accounting for and sharing the abiding experiences and encounters yielded through travel.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The major theme that runs throughout my work has always been the question of representation; where to draw the line between ‘real life’ and ‘art’, illusion and abstraction, transcription and composition. The line between illusion and truth, or to put it another way, “between the ontological and the epistemological – between ‘things as they are’ and ‘things as they seem”, was also a concern that preoccupied the seventeenth century. This research challenges the assumption that the ancients are fixed firmly and stably in a past in which the moderns are the victors and the ancients the losers. This research reconsiders the contribution the Baroque has made to Western thought, but in particular, to explain its ongoing appeal and its continuing relevance to painting in the late twentieth / early twenty-first centuries. And more importantly for the purposes of my own research as a painter in the digital age, is to pose the question: how to formulate a Neo-Baroque aesthetic adequate to addressing the problems and uncertainties specific to painting in the twenty-first century?

Artworks produced in this studio-based research (option D) involve exploration of the ‘liquid space’ of the sea, not just in its physical and sensual nature and the way the sea looks, but also with what the sea inspires. They explore the spatial dynamics of underwater terrains, convergences of inner and outer ‘space’, and question if and how the numinous and immaterial might be made manifest in the material. References to the traditional story of Jonah and the Whale operate as a contemporary metaphor for the sea as a site of death and renewal. Through the creation of series of paintings, works on paper and engraved glass overlays, the sea is examined as a synthesis of the complex and diverse on many fluidly interacting levels, including the empirical, experiential and metaphoric. As a poetic space with many levels of resonance, it becomes ground for exploring the creative process, the nature of being and processes of transformation and change within each. Research questions include: What might a contemporary expression of the interaction of the physical and metaphysical self be like? How might a synthesis of abstraction and representation be created in the visual language of painting? How might concepts of unity be reconciled with rhythms of death and renewal, transformation and change? Does unity necessarily mean uniform? A significant aspect of this research has been the generation of artworks on or through field trips to locations by the sea - Cape Leveque in North-east Australia, Heron Island Research Station on the Great Barrier Reef and South Bruny Island in Tasmania. In exploring the interface between abstraction and representation, unity and diversity, and the inner and outer worlds, I have discovered the sea rich ground for reenvisioning these seeming opposites as co-creative, relational and finally inseparable. The ‘Wave’ structure of the Exegesis is more than usually organic in form. Conventional chapters are replaced by multiple and varied sections, each called a WAVE and written in changing ‘voice’. Echoing the shifting rhythms of the sea, and in order to correspond more directly to the way practice-driven research creates meaning, the wave structure reflects the wider concerns of the research to synthesise the unexpected and diverse.