The Arts - Visual Art

This guide mainly focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, views, and visual arts conventions since European colonisation. However, visual arts has been an important part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for thousands of years, and still is today.  

The oldest forms of visual art by Australia’s First Peoples still have great cultural significance. They are rock engravings that date back at least 60,000 years. 

Rock art and engravings are some of the oldest forms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts. But the range of traditional visual arts practices also includes: 
 

• bark painting 

• wood sculpting  

• burning designs on timber  

• carving weapons and other objects or tools 

• basket weaving  

• decorating objects such as boomerangs  

• carving, painting and feather-decorating burial poles  

• etching and ochre-painting designs onto possum cloaks  

• creating headdresses and ornaments for ceremonial purposes, to wear, or as gifts.
  
   

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists also create:
 

• paintings on canvas 

• works on paper 

• photography and photo media 

• video and installation art 

• digital and new media.  

Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists often use a mix of old and new visual arts materials. Some of these practices are more common or specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups in certain locations. This diversity of visual arts practices reflects the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and identities more generally.  

Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts are also tied to other arts, like dance, drama and music. Visual artworks are often involved in corroboree events.  

Corroborees are ceremonies of song, dance, music and visual symbols or stimuli that represent and pass on information about the Dreaming. However, the generic word ‘corroboree’ is a word Europeans coined to imitate a term from one Aboriginal language of NSW. There is no single corroboree structure, style or story. Different corroborees exist between and within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts have high value in community and cultural life, far beyond how much money they’re worth or how good they look. It is often the role and responsibility of an artist to carry significant socio-cultural and spiritual messages through their art. Artists tell and protect stories, sites, characters and symbols that have sacred meaning through cultural-artistic conventions.  

‘It’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that Country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in a painting, your Country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too.’ – Gija artist Shirley Purdie. 

There are many concerns around authenticity, origin and theft with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts. This is because of the stories the artist maintains through certain lore, rules and protocols. Stories are shared within community and aspects of them are sacred to the artist’s Country. Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) refers to the rights that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to protect their traditional arts and culture. Currently Australian law does not protect the stories told in paintings or an artmaking technique such as cross hatching or dot painting. 

‘The old ways of doing things have changed into the new ways. The new generation does things differently. But me, I have two ways. I am the old and the new.’ – Kuninjku artist, John Mawurndjul. 

First Nations artists continue to create traditional artworks that depict significant cultural histories. But in the last 250 years artmaking styles have evolved to include influences from Western perspectives. The impact of colonisation and in some cases the disconnection to culture has seen some contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists combine subject matter, mark making and mediums to express their culture and to tell their stories. 

These are some of the key dates in recent history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts, including some dates that bring visual arts and reconciliation together. 
 

60,000+ years ago: 

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia maintain visual arts conventions and concepts that date back tens of thousands of years.
   

1880s: 

• Mickey of Ulladulla, William Barack of Coranderrk, Oscar from Cooktown and Tommy McCrae  used pencil, watercolour and crayon to document daily life. They noted ceremony and other cultural practices, and interactions with newly arrived Europeans. ceremony and other cultural practices, and interactions with newly arrived Europeans.
    

1855: 

• Bark paintings were exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
   

1948: 

• The first community art centre was established at Pukatja (Ernabella, Central Australia).
   

1953: 

• Albert Namatjira presented to the Queen in Canberra.
   

1955: 

• Albert Namatjira was elected as an honorary member of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales.
    

1957: 

• Albert Namatjira was one of the first Aboriginal people to be granted full citizenship rights.
   

1958–9: 

• Tony Tuckson, Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, acquired a set of Tiwi burial poles and displayed them in the gallery foyer the next year. This was one of the first times Aboriginal art was displayed as fine art instead of artefact or cultural expression. 
   

1960–1: 

• Australian Aboriginal Art: bark paintings, carved figures, sacred and secular object was the first major exhibition of Aboriginal art to tour nationally.
    

1966: 

• A work by David Malangi was reproduced on the first Australian dollar note without his permission.
   

1971: 

• The Papunya Tula Art Movement began – often considered the beginning of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts.  

• Kaapa Tjampitjinpa  won equal first prize at the Caltex Art Award in Alice Springs. 

• The Commonwealth Government funded Aboriginal Arts and Crafts Pty Ltd. The company helped create credible outlets for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts in most state capitals for over 20 years.  

• Victoria Square in Adelaide flew the Aboriginal flag, designed by Aboriginal artist and activist, Harold Thomas, on National Aborigines Day (12 July). It was then chosen as the flag for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972. 
    

1973: 

• The Aboriginal Arts Board was set up to raise awareness of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts.
   

1976: 

• The Aboriginal Arts Board established the Aboriginal Artist’s Agency (AAA), which coordinated copyright issues and promoted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts in the contemporary art world. 
   

1981: 

• Papunya painters and their works were publicly recognised as part of contemporary Australian art when three of their paintings were selected for the Australian Perspecta 1981 exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.
   

1984: 

• The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory hosted the inaugural National Aboriginal Art Award – now the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA).
   

1987-88: 

• One of Australia’s most powerful and important works of art The Aboriginal Memorial, was created. It is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA).
    

1988: 

• Michael Nelson Tjakamarra was commissioned to design a mosaic for the main forecourt of Australia's new parliament house as part of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations. In 1993, he chiselled out a stone from the mosaic to protest anti-Mabo legislation.
   

1990:  

• Rover Thomas and Trevor Nickolls were the first Aboriginal artists to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale.
   

1997: 

• The Venice Biennale included works by artists Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Yvonne Koolmatrie and Judy Watson.
    

1991: 

• TANDANYA National Aboriginal Cultural Institute opened, and continues to be Australia’s only public gallery solely dedicated to Aboriginal art.
    

1992: 

• The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission recognised the Torres Strait Islander flag, designed by late artist Bernard Namok from Thursday Island, and gave it equal prominence with the Aboriginal flag.
   

1994: 

• The Art Gallery of NSW opened the Yiribana Gallery – a permanent gallery dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art
  .  

1995: 

• Both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flags were officially recognised as a ‘Flag of Australia’ under the Flags Act 1953.
   

1997: 

• The Federal Court of Australia declared that Harold Thomas was the copyright owner of the Aboriginal flag design. 

• Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa (1972) by Central Desert artist John Warangkula Tjupurrula sold for $206,000, breaking all auction records for works by Aboriginal artists.
    

1999: 

• The National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association (NIAAA) launched the Label of Authenticity to provide a national certification system for authentic products.
   

2003: 

• Richard Bell won NATSIAA with a painting called Scientia E Metaphysica (Bell’s Theorem), which included the text ‘Aboriginal art, it’s a white thing’. In his manifesto, Bell critiques the Aboriginal arts industry.
   

2005: 

• When the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) ended, their entire Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs art collection went to the National Museum of Australia. The objects could then be preserved, studied and displayed into the future. This collection tells an important part of Australia’s history, including the relationship between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from 1967 to 2005.
    

2006: 

• The Musée du quai Branly in Paris commissioned eight Aboriginal artists to produce works for the ceilings and façade of the building that represented the Aboriginal art movement. It was the largest international commission of Indigenous art. Artists included John Mawurndjul, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Michael Riley, Judy Watson, Tommy Watson, Ningura Napurrula, Paddy Bedford, and Lena Nyadbi.
   

2007: 

• Australia Council for the Arts established its annual National Indigenous Arts Awards. 

• The first Australian Indigenous Art Triennial, Culture Warriors, launched at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA). 

• Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s work, Warlugulong, sold to the National Gallery of Australia for $2.4million, representing the highest priced Aboriginal artwork in history.
   

2010: 

• The Australia Council for the Arts’ Indigenous Art Code launched publicly. It set fair and ethical trade standards for art dealers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. 
   

2012: 

• Tony Albert became the first Aboriginal Australian to be appointed as official war artist. He was deployed to the Army’s Regional Surveillance Force North West Mobile Unit (NORFORCE). His artworks honour the dedication and contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians to the defence of Australia.
   

2013:  

• The Royal Academy of Arts exhibits Australia. Described as the most significant survey of Australian art ever mounted in the UK, National Gallery of Australia, provided half of the 200 items on display. Artists included Rover Thomas, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Tracey Moffatt, John Mawurndjul, and Uta Uta Tjangala. The Royal Academy and The Australia Council for the Arts provided funds for Judy Watson and Christian Thompson to create new works for the occasion. 

• Australian Museum projected a 3 hour film by Nicole Foreshew titled born in darkness before dawn for a period of 3 months. The film, shown on a 20m wall, celebrated the importance of Sydney’s Indigenous history and culture.
   

2014: 

• The Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) introduced a youth award was introduced for the first time.
    

2015: 

• The first Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art featured the work of over 300 artists from across Australia at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA).
   

2016: 

• Arts Law Centre of Australia, Indigenous Art Code and Copyright Agency launched Fake Art Harms Culture campaign at Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair to stop inauthentic Indigenous art products and the effects on Indigenous artists, communities and businesses.
   

2017:  

• Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters was exhibited at the National Museum of Australia. With over 100 paintings and 66 weavings, this project was a collaboration between senior Custodians of Martu Country and APY and Ngaanyatjarra Lands. Focused artist camps took place with Tjanpi Desert Weavers. The works were purchased by the National Museum of Australia. 

• 19 senior male artists of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands were commissioned by the Australian War Memorial to tell their story of Aboriginal Australians defending Country on a 200cm x 495.8cm painting titled Kulatangku Angakanyini Manta Munu Tjukurpa [Country And Culture Will Be Protected By Spears]. 

• Emily Kame Kngwarreye's work Earth's Creation I sold to an international buyer for $2.1million. It held the record for any work of art by any Australian female since 2007 when it was sold for $1.56million.
    

2018:  

• Daniel Boyd was commissioned by the Australian War Memorial to complete his sculpture For our Country to recognise the military service of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
   

2019: 

• Competition and Consumer Amendment (Prevention of Exploitation of Indigenous Cultural Expressions) Bill 2019 was put forward to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee but was not passed by Parliament in 2020. 

• The Federal Court ordered Birubi Art Pty Ltd to pay $2.3million for making false or misleading representations about products it sold in breach of the Australian Consumer Law. The penalty is the largest of its kind ever awarded by the Federal Court
   

2020: 

• Since the Australian national Archibald Prize was established in 1921, Vincent Namatjira was the first Aboriginal artist to win the prize with his portrait of AFL and Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes Stand strong for who you are. Among the finalists, were a record breaking, eight First Nations artists and ten First Nations sitters. 

• Artist and actor Meyne Wyatt was the first Aboriginal artist to win the Packing Room Prize in the 2020 Archibald Prize. 

• The Wyndham Art Prize was won by Amala Groom for her fake boomerang artwork, titled Copywrong, in response to the lack of copyright entitlements for Indigenous cultural materials.
   

2021: 

• Social enterprise Magpie Goose transitioned to Aboriginal ownership. Launched in 2015, Magpie Goose collaborate with First Nations artists to produce collections with artwork printed onto sustainable fabrics.
   

2022: 

• The Australian federal government acquired copyright of the Aboriginal flag in a $20 million deal with Luritja artist Harold Thomas. The copyright of the Australian Aboriginal Flag was transferred from Mr Harold Thomas to the Commonwealth of Australia. This means the flag is free to be used by anyone without seeking permission or paying a fee. 

• Blak Douglas won the Archibald Prize for his portrait of artist Karla Dickens Moby Dickens, the first time a portrait of an Aboriginal woman had been awarded the prize. He was the second Aboriginal artist to win the Archibald.  

• The Art Gallery of New South Wales expanded to create a new space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in the newly relocated Yiribana Gallery. Lorraine Connelly-Northey’s large-scale narrbong-galang (many bags) and work by Karla Dickens featured in the opening program for the Sydney Modern Project. 

• Two pieces by William Barak were sold at auction in New York for a total of $604000. The artworks were purchased by the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation. Finance was raised through crowdfunding and support from the Victorian Government to able to bring the pieces home to Country.