Art, History, Place

Christine Nicholls (author)

Working Title Press, Australia: 2003; 40pp

ISBN: 1876288434

Genres: Art, factual text, history, information text, non-fiction, picture book

Issues: aboriginal

CBCA Honour Book for the Eva Pownall Award for Information Books, 2004.

Dr Christine Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies at Flinders University.

This is a concise, easily understood explanation of the development of the art of Indigenous Australians.

 Dr Nicholls leads the reader from the beginning of the contemporary acrylic art movement in Papunya in the early 1970s back through the traditions and influences that have led to the many remarkable and powerful works of art seen today. She provides a clear explanation of the icons used in both traditional and contemporary dot paintings and explains about ownership of different Dreamings. She challenges the idea that all Indigenous Australian art is from the Central and Western Desert regions and explores the many crafts and Western influenced paintings and installations of younger artists. The issue of the ‘stolen generations' is examined in relation to art - Nicholls explores the idea that stolen children lost not only their parents but their dreamings. Their art is therefore about different things and expressed in a more Western style.

This is a fascinating, remarkably comprehensive text that is of sufficient simplicity in register and layout that it can be used in the junior primary school classroom. A huge range of artworks are reproduced in high-quality colour photographs, with detailed references to relevant Dreamings and the physical location of each piece.

Highly recommended.