Essay by Adam Kaul, Associate Professor of Anthropology

The Aboriginal peoples of Australia have been subjected to dramatic transformations and hardship over the last century, and yet they have tried tenaciously to preserve their indigenous cultures. This painting is by Jackie Pearce, an Aboriginal woman from the community of Imanpa in the Northern Territory of Australia, who is descended from a long line of well-known Aboriginal artists. Sue Verlander, who runs the Imanpa Arts organization, tells us that Jackie Pearce and her two sisters were taught to paint at an early age by their mother, Emma Inkamala.

Many aspects of the piece are very traditional, and yet it was created using Western materials-acrylic paints on canvas, placing the piece firmly in the current era following the changes brought by Western society. The use of tiny dots to create patterns and figures, reminiscent of French Post-Impressionist Pointillism, is probably the most recognizable feature of traditional Aboriginal aesthetics. Verlander informs us that the images and symbolism tell a very traditional story, too. "The painting," she wrote, "is a bush-tucker dreaming story where a man and woman are out in the desert in search for food. Instead of looking for plants this couple wants to hunt the goanna [lizard], and search for eggs of the kuniya (python snake) as well as the goanna's eggs. We see [them] protecting their eggs from the hunters."

Bush-tucker is a descriptive term for wild foods taken directly from the environment. In the past, it was vitally important to teach children how to survive by hunting and gathering, and in an oral culture without writing, education came in the form of storytelling and visual art. Originally, these educational drawings would have been made in the sand, but today they are painted with more permanent materials and are sold to outside art collectors. Imagery in Aboriginal art is either abstract or figurative, and this piece includes both. The python and the goanna lizard are clearly figurative, while the man and the woman are represented in abstract by the U-shapes inside the circles. The U-shapes represent people in Aboriginal art because it is the shape that remains in the sand after a person has been sitting. We can also see that the man and the woman have brought their hunting and gathering tools with them-spears, digging sticks, and boomerangs among other things.

As this painting vividly illustrates, traditional Aboriginal culture has, thankfully, not been swept away by the tide of Westernization.