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Depictions of mythical beings appear in many different forms of art world-wide, including rock art of various ages. In this paper we explore a particular type of imagery, back-to-back figures, consisting of two human-like figures or animals of the same species next to each other and facing in opposite directions. Some human-like doubles were joined at the back rather than side-by-side, but also face opposite directions. In this paper, we report on new research on rock art, bark paintings and recent paintings on paper and chart a 9000-year history of making aesthetically, symbolically and spiritually powerful back-to-back figures in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aboriginal painting has been largely treated as conceptual rather than perceptual and its visual impact little examined. In this article the author shows the perceptual skill and innovation demonstrated by Aboriginal bark painters in depicting figure-ground and occlusion. This has heuristic value for studying occlusion perception and adds visual meaning to the conceptual meaning of the paintings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across remote Aboriginal Australia, phone and tablet photographic technologies are giving rise to vibrant new forms of visual culture. Greenscreen software, montage and .gif effects enable the creation of layered images that literally pulse with meaning and affect. Akin to bark painting – yet deliberately different – such images reveal the spectral depth of Yolngu worlds. At a time when families across Arnhem Land face relentless loss and social stress, the making, sharing and viewing of elaborated family photographs reaffirm, reconstitute, and thicken a world of vitality, resonance and ancestral significance. Through deliberately posed and often highly postproduced photography Yolngu can creatively participate in a profoundly synaesthetic and sentient world, a world enlivened by uncanny encounter, a world that requires the ongoing affirmation and renewal of relationships through imagistic practice. This is a world of sensuous force and inside meanings, a world that far exceeds the registers of what the eye can see, the camera can capture, or, indeed, what the anthropologist will ever know. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of thermogravimetric analysis (TG) as a tool for the characterisation of ochre paint used in indigenous Australian bark paintings has been investigated. TG has been combined with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and mass spectrometry (MS) to identify and quantify the main inorganic and organic components present in the paints. The results obtained were supported by comparison with infrared spectra and XRD data obtained for the same specimens. The potential of thermal methods for the characterisation ochres has been demonstrated, with subtle differences between small samples being able to be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a group of Aboriginal bark-paintings featuring Macassan praus that were collected in 1948 during the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land. These paintings were studied in an effort to understand issues related to Aboriginal and Macassan cross-cultural interaction, stylistic adaptation and change, and maritime technologies. Furthermore it is one example in which the collaborative efforts of maritime and Indigenous archaeologies can achieve a more holistic technological and stylistic cross-analysis of watercraft imagery. © 2009 The Authors [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Kuninjku artists, the production of bark paintings is inspired by their love for the Ancestrally created clan country, the key ground of Kuninjku existence, and yet the works are also produced to be sold on the world market. The intention of the artists is to educate non-Kuninjku audiences about the importance of country. Artists manipulate culturally appropriate forms of representation and aesthetic treatment in order to create works that have both local and broad-based appeal. The focus of this article is upon the way Kuninjku learn about appropriate ways of painting within the familial context and how this context is also intercultural in scope. The article leads to a consideration of the way artists develop experience and seniority and may break away from established forms to create new work. In this respect certain Kuninjku artists become leaders in developing styles they consider suitable for the contemporary art market. Résumé La production de peintures sur écorce par les artistes kuninjku est inspirée par l’amour des terres de leur clan, créées par les Ancêtres et lieu essentiel de leur existence. Pourtant, ces œuvres sont également destinées àêtre vendues sur le marché mondial. L’intention des artistes est de faire comprendre au public non kuninjku l’importance du pays. Ils manipulent les formes culturellement appropriées de représentation et de traitement artistique et esthétique pour créer des œuvres ayant à la fois un intérêt local et un attrait plus large. L’auteur met ici l’accent sur la manière dont les Kuninjku apprennent les manières appropriées de peindre dans le contexte familial, et comment ce contexte a aussi une portée interculturelle. L’article débouche sur une analyse de la façon dont les artistes acquièrent expérience et ancienneté et peuvent alors rompre avec les formes établies de création de nouvelles œuvres. À cet égard, certains artistes kuninjku deviennent des chefs de file dans le développement de styles qu’ils considèrent adaptés au marché de l’art contemporain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the poet and collector of 'mythologies', Roland Robinson, in prompting the production of commercial bark-painting at Port Keats (Wadeye), appears to have been accepted uncritically -- though not usually acknowledged -- by collectors and curators. Here we attempt to trace the history of painting in the Daly--Fitzmaurice region to contextualise Robinson's contribution, and to evaluate it from both the perspective of available literature and of accounts of contemporary painters and Traditional Owners in the Port Keats area. It is possible that the intervention that Robinson might have considered revolutionary was more likely a continuation of previously well-established cultural practice, the commercial development of which was both an Indigenous 'adjustment' to changing socio-cultural circumstances, and a quiet statement of maintenance of identity by strong individuals adapting and attempting to continue their cultural traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here I examine social processes involved in the manipulation of painted forms of bark-paintings among Kuninjku artists living near Maningrida in Arnhem Land. Young artists are taught to paint through apprenticeships that involve exchange of skills in producing form within extended family groups. Through apprenticeship processes we can also see how personal innovations are shared among family and become more regionally located. Lately there have been moves by senior artists to establish separate out-stations and to train their wives and daughters to paint. At a stylistic level the art now creates a greater sense of family autonomy and yet the subjects link the artists back in to much broader social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the bark paintings of the most primitive Australian aboriginal language group, the Kuninjku. It describes the continuity of the art, art practice and its enormous change and innovation over the years. It describes the connection of remote aboriginal modernism on western modernism, which is the inspiration for modern abstract painters.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Jo McDonald and Peter Veth on their direct dating of rock-paintings in the Calvert Ranges and Carnarvon Ranges in Western Australia and Graeme Ward and Mark Crocombe about paintings on bark in the Wadeye region of the Northern Territory.

The article focuses on the mid-19th century bark drawing, an artifact from Victoria, Australia. It states that only three bark drawing survive from the 19th century which came from the South-east state of Victoria. It discusses the history of the artifacts and how they end up with the British Museum and John Hunter Kerr. Moreover, the process of preparing the bark for drawing is discussed such as removing the bark from a tree trunk and flattening it to create drawings related to everyday life.

This paper explores how the appeal of the imagery of the Arnhem Land bark painting and its powerful connection to land provided critical, though subtle messaging, during the post-war Australian government's tourism promotions in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an untitled Australian aboriginal bark painting made with a mixture of ochre and natural pigments.