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Aboriginal Bark
Paintings
Click
on the thumbnails for full details and pricing for each of the Aboriginal Bark Paintings.
1970's Wandjina (The Rain God)
Lily Karedada
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1970's Wandjina (The Rain God)
Lily Karedada
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1970's Bark Painting
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Large 1025 cm Bark Painting
Jo James
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1990 Wandjina (The Rain God)
Lily Karedada
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1980's Ochre Barracuda
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Aboriginal
bark paintings
have a long cultural tradition, believed to extend back many thousands
of years.
In northern Australia, paintings on bark shelters in the Kimberley
and Arnhem Land were stylistically similar to rock shelter paintings.
The Aboriginal bark paintings were used to convey and illustrate
stories which were told to the clan when holed up in the shelter
for long periods in the wet season. In Kimberly, the Aboriginal
bark paintings by Lily karadada resemble ancient rock art Wandjina
paintings which are themselves many, many thousands of years old.
Bark paintings with deep cultural and ritual significance still
feature in the Aboriginal sacred ceremonies of northern Australia
and they, along with some coastal inhabitants are the only indigenous
Aborigines still making traditional bark paintings.
The process of making a bark painting begins with choosing a suitable
stringybark eucalyptus tree, preferably in the wet season when the
sap is rising and the bark is fairly supple and easy to grip. After
finding a section of bark that is devoid of knots and termite damage,
cuts are made top and bottom and after some encouragement by tugging
and prying, a hollow open cylinder of bark is removed. The bark
sheet is trimmed and a fire made ready, over which the bark will
be cured to drive out any moisture. The bark is then flattened to
the ground with feet and then held down with heavy weights to ensure
that it doesn't curl or warp.
The Aboriginal bark painters of Arnhem Land adhere to four basic
pigments - red, black, white and yellow. The reds and yellows come
from ochres, crushed and powdered rocks. White comes from pipeclay
and black generally comes from charcoal. Sometimes natural fixatives
are mixed in to bind the pigments and which includes wax, yolk of
eggs, resins and the sap of orchid plants. The paint can then be
applied to the bark with perhaps a rarrk design by using a wood
comb, or with brushes made from human hair or even feathers.
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