As I have said before, much of my work is inspired by the Aboriginal people and their art. In search of this art and the meaning behind their style, I have used resources such as kateowengallery.com and artlandish.com. Both of these websites have given me information of the origin of the dot paintings as well as the art itself.
In terms of dots, to answer McClain’s initial question, the art of dot painting actually did not begin until the 1970′s when Geoffrey Bardon became the school art teacher in Papunya, Australia. While observing the Aboriginal men’s sand drawings of symbols during story-telling time, he encouraged them to transfer those images onto canvas with paint. The Aboriginal people were fearful that the sacred-secret symbols and stories would be understood by Westerners as well as other tribes, and so they began to cover the images in dots, abstracting the symbols and designs. These works depicted the land of the people and the stories associated. They were seen as a visual representation of identification and origin. Now, paintings consist of dots, crosshatch, spirals, and lines painted in acrylics giving movement and rhythm to these pieces that mix contemporary and traditional Aboriginal art.
I was first influenced by the art that I saw on Aboriginal reservations in Kakadu, Australia as well as the Aboriginal Art Museum in Darwin when I visited but since then I have found much more on tumblr. Key artists that are thematically significant to my current body of work include many current and past Aboriginal artists such as Chantelle Roberston, Rusty Peters, Naata Nungurrayi, Richard Yukenbarri Tjakamarra, and Tjungkara Ken. These wonderful artists have much to do with my inspiration for seasonal landscapes. Their use of abstracted, organic symbols and variation of color have given me great ideas of how to portray my own landscape scenes while holding true to the Aboriginal style.
In terms of the tribal family shields and figures, I find a lot of carving and textural inspiration from Judi Tavill’s ceramics. Her use of moving lines and varying textures always inspires me to use different tools and experiment with design.