ARNHEM LAND BARK PAINTINGS
Bark Paintings by Important Artists from Arnhem Land
To enquire about any of the works, please email adrian@newsteadart.com
Painting is an important component of ceremonial activity in Northeast Arnhem Land. The majority of paintings are made in the context of mortuary and initiation ceremonies. Paintings represent places and the connections between places. During his life, a man takes a journey back into these places by way of the paintings and songs and dances, and through them, and the instruction he receives about them, he learns more about their significance to his clan. On his death, the paintings are a means by which his spirit is guided back to the clan well of his ancestors in his own clan territory, aided by the actions of the living.
Bark paintings are a means which fortunately enable Europeans to gain the aesthetic satisfaction of viewing fine works of art without demanding from the Yuulngu ceremonial objects which they are not prepared to sell.
Howard Morphy
ANU Canberra, November 1976
The Content of Bark Paintings
© Adrian Newstead
Cutting and Preparing Bark
Totemic depictions and clan designs associated with moiety, clan and tribal affiliations, are vital elements of the imagery portrayed in bark paintings. Early Arnhem Land barks could be divided in to those principally produced in Western and Central Arnhem Land that depicted simple figurative images of totemic creatures; and those from Northern Islands and the North East of Arnhem Land that featured clan designs in which few, if any, figurative elements appeared at all. These were considered un-necessary to the artists of the North East, who understood intimately the inter-connectedness of the specific clan designs relating to totem and place, and the stories, songs and dances associated with them.
To the untrained eye these designs appear to be simple abstracted decorative cross-hatching. Yet they are absolutely specific to each totemic group, and relate directly to the stories and places that inform the artist’s life and place in the world. They are designs that have been given at every important stage in the artist’s development as a ‘living being’ and they carry with them deep custodial responsibilities. In Arnhem Land these designs are called ‘rarrk’. When used to infill the bodies of animals and humans these patterns represent the subtle energy fields that emanate from, and interconnect, all living things. When used to interconnect living creatures it evokes the numinous country in which they live. Though clearly impossible, if you held in your hand ‘The Book of Rarrk’ and were given the right to use each clan pattern within it by the appropriate Elders from each tribal group, you would have a passport in to every ‘ country’ in Arnhem Land.
Click the images below for further details about each of the artworks and their artist profiles.
Prising the bark away from the tree
Every clan and tribe throughout Australia has its own particular designs both sacred and secular that are generally associated with particular sites. In Eastern and Western Arnhem Land there is an elaborate array of designs that delineate between one place and another, and one clan group from another. In Western Arnhem Land the system is less formalised than in the east but each group has geometric ‘rarrk’ designs, that link them to ancestral beings like the Djang’kawu sisters in the east and Luma Luma in the west, and these creation beings connect many different clans along the routes of their ancient journeys. As an example, the route of the wild honey ancestor of the Yirritja moiety is painted as a diamond pattern that varies slightly in its rendering by artists of different clans and locations who all belong to this moiety.
These designs and others associated with them are traditionally painted on bodies of young initiates during their induction into adulthood; and painted and engraved onto ritual objects and specific locations for use during ceremony. Just some of the various ways that these patterns are used include rock engravings; on to boomerangs, dilly bags and other ceremonial objects; carvings on tree trunks; and in rock and cave painting at particular sites where ceremonies take place.
Regardless of its style, each image and clan rarrk design, is based on, and embodies, tribal myth. For example an emu’s track becomes the bird itself, its spirit, its totemic ancestor as well as conveying song, dance and ceremony. Moreover each myth conveys a lesson or moral that guides human behaviour, thereby empowering the person who invokes it.
Pulling away the outer surface of the bark
Despite the difficulty in interpreting myths amongst 50 different language groups each with varying descriptions of the meaning of the designs and regionally specific versions of the long narrative stories that pass through their land on their way to and from others, there is a common thread to many.
They include creation myths such as the Wagilag sisters, and the Rainbow Serpent that attempt to describe how the world began. These are performed at birth, initiation, death, and during age-grading ceremonies. Myths of natural forces such as fire, wind or how the Milky Way was created.
Straightening the bark over a fire
These myths form the basis of a calendar based on natural time cycles such as the changing winds before a monsoon, or the position of stars during the season when, for instance, tubers might ripen. Myths of men and women such as the Mimi myth, which serve to delineate the roles of men and women, and the standards of behaviour. Myths of everyday life, such as the Luma Luma myth, that teach how and where to fish, how to leach poisons from tubers, the behaviour of animals, and how to divide up game for relatives. And funeral myths, such as the Morning star myth and the Purukupali legend, which help to relieve sorrow and fear, draw the survivors together, in order to reaffirm belief that the customs and laws of the Dreamtime are still in force.[1]
[1] Louis A. Allan, Time Before Morning, Art and Myth of the Australian Aborigines, Rigby, 1976
Photographs from Yirrkala Art: An exhibition of Aboriginal bark paintings and carvings Catalogue, presented by the Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, Australian National University and curated by Howard Morphy.
© Adrian Newstead