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For Aboriginal people the hunting and gathering of 'bush tucker' is at the core of their lives. It provides nourishment for both body and spirit, as food and medicine, and is of great ritual and spiritual significance. In indigenous societies, bush tucker is entwined with their creation philosophy and the understanding of how the world began and how they have lived in harmony with it to the present time.
'Bush Tucker' brings together paintings by artists of the Ikuntji and Warlukurlangu artist communities from the Central Desert regions outside Alice Springs, whose vibrant paintings communicate the intense colours and the changing seasons of the Desert. These paintings also convey the highly developed aesthetic sense of these artists in the context of international contemporary art.
With depictions of country, the hunting and harvesting of food, tools and utensils, stories and ceremonial activities, these paintings embody the essence of individual Dreamings.
The Water Dreaming paintings of Shorty Jangala Robertson, a senior Warlukurlungu artist, are at once a creation story of the origins of the water soakages and naturally occurring wells in the usually dry creek bed in the vicinity of an outstation owned by Shorty's family and an evocative schematic 'landscape' of the Puyurru site with curved and straight lines to represent the floodwaters running through the landscape, small circles for water soakages and bars for storm clouds.
Similarly, creation stories, significant sites and ritual are symbolically depicted in the |
