The narrative art of Indigenous Australians is inspired not only by oral traditions, but also by events from recent history. Jimmy Pike relates concerning his screen print: “This is a true story. A few people went hunting near the water hole. My father had crossed over with a woman to the Canning Stock Route, leaving my mother and my small sister at the water hole. One day they left the water hole to go hunting and made a fire in the spinifex grass. It was a large fire with high flames, so they stood apart. The small kangaroos fled the flames [which aided the hunting]. Suddenly people heard the noise of a flying dragon, which covered everywhere. The airplane flew exactly at the fire and dropped something [a Bomb]. My mother and the children hid themselves in the bushes, but returned later to the water hole. They found there small metal pieces of the thing – which still lie there.” (p. 47)
Fig. 3: Judy Watson, our bones in your collection, 1997, etching with chine collé, 30 x 21 cm (paper 40 x 27 cm), printed in: Watson, Judy and Martin-Chew, Louise: Judy Watson blood language, Miegunyah Press, Darlton 2009, p. 173
During 1997, Judy Watson stayed with Northern Editions in Darwin as an “Artist in Residence” and completed a series of three etchings which criticized the use of human remains in exhibitions by European ethnological museums. The artist had visited in the previous year a number of museums in Great Britain and make sketches of exhibits about the Waanyi people in northwest Queensland, to which Judy Watson belongs. By overlaying the etchings with chine collé, the artist creates the effect of hiding the exhibits behind a veil, withdrawing them from public view and providing them the respect which is their due.
How Printmaking came to the Desert
Even today, it is not common for Indigenous artists living outside of major cities to use printmaking techniques. A major reason for this is that neither the small communities in which the artists live, nor the artists’ cooperatives, can provide the necessary technical and financial resources for printing presses. Only a few experienced printmakers live in, or visit, remote areas. Thus there are, even today, only a few art centres which are equipped to create art prints.
In order to nevertheless give the artists the possibility of becoming acquainted with and trying new techniques, experienced printers invited them - right at the start of the new art movement – to their workshops in the main cities. In this way, individual examples of Indigenous printmaking have been created since the 1970s. One of the first attempts to bring such prints into the art market was undertaken by the Port Jackson Press. They achieved little success, however, because the market had at that time a very narrow view of what constituted Indigenous art.
The first well-known prints were linocuts made a little earlier - 1968 - in the Long Bay Prison by artist, author and activist Kevin Gilbert, as he served a sentence there. Jimmy Pike was also one of the first artists to try the new medium, also in a prison, in Fremantle. (1)
In the same year, Bede Tungatalum and Giovanni Tipungwuti, who later operated the Tiwi Design printing press, began their influential series of woodcuts. Johnny Bulun Bulun and David Milaybuma created in 1979 a set of screen prints in the studio of Larry Rawlins. More art prints were created at the Canberra School of Art, which had operated a printing press since 1976. Artists in Yirrkala worked sporadically with printing in the early 1980s. The linocuts by Banduk Marika are well known.
The breakthrough in printmaking came in 1993, when Leon Stainer at the School of Art and Design of the Northern Territory University in Darwin, created a Print Workshop. This “Northern Editions” was managed and directed for many years by Basil Hall. One goal of the organisation was to provide those artists who had no access to a print workshop with expertise in printing techniques. Therefore the employees of “Northern Editions” travelled west to the artists in the Kimberley, northeast to Arnhem Land or south to central Australia. Some artists also came to workshops organised in Darwin. In the university program “Artists in Residence”, artists from all over Australia participated: not only those from rural areas, but also from major cities, e.g. Brook Andrew and Judy Watson. By the year 2000, “Northern Editions” was publishing over 120 print editions annually.
With the help of “Northern Editions”, artists from many art centres gradually began creating prints. Ernabella art centre was already active in 1993. Alice Nampitjinpa and Narputta Nangala Jugadai from the Ikuntji art centre in Haasts Bluff travelled to Darwin in 1998 for a workshop. The first graphics workshop in Yuendumu took place in 1998, with participation by Paddy Japaljarri Sims and Andrea Nungurrayi Martin. Artists of the Warlayirti art centre in Wirrimanu began printmaking in 1999.
The art centres on Tiwi, Bathurst and Melville Islands, as well as in Maningrida, were the first to operate their own printing presses, with the aid of printers trained by “Northern Editions”.
The most commonly used technique is etching. Lithography and screen printing are somewhat less popular. Woodcut and linocut are likewise less common, but have a number of famous examples by prominent artists such as Banduk Marika or well-known portfolio like the “Utopia Suite” (2), which is found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney and the Kunstmuseums Spendhaus in Reutlingen.
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Fig. 2: Alice Nampitjinpa, Tali at Talaalpi, 1998, etching, printed in:
Northern Editions (ed.): Land Mark - Mirror Mark, Darwin
undated, p. 54
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Three years after Alice Nampitjinpa began her artistic career, she received the opportunity to create etchings at “Northern Editions”. One result was „Tali at Talaalpi“. Talaalpi is the birthplace of the artist, and tali are long, stable sand dunes, a recurring motive for the artist. The etching thus shows the country of greates importance for Alice Nampitjinpa.
Notes
(1) Even today, a disproportionately high number of Indigenous Australians are in prisons. In 2009, for example, 25% of all prisoners were of Indigenous origin, although First Australians make approximately 2.3% of the Australian population. The risk of being sentenced to prison was 14 times higher for Indigenous Australians than for others.
(2) Printed in full in: Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen (ed.): Bilderwelten in Utopia. Holzschnitte und Gemälde von Aborigines, Speyer 2004, ISBN 3980707229
Further Literature:
Anderson, S. and Smith, T. (eds.): Getting into Prints. A Symposium on Aboriginal Printmaking, Association of Northern and Central Australian Aboriginal Artists, Darwin 1993
Hall, Basil: Printmaking Gains Momentum, Artlink Vol 20 no 1, 2000 pp. 56-58
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (ed.): Jimmy Pike, Edition Cantz, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3893223002
Northern Territory University (ed.): Printabout. Lithographs, Etchings, and Lino Prints from the Northern Territory University Art Collection, Darwin 1993
Northern Editions (ed.): Land Mark - Mirror Mark, Darwin, 2000
Watson, Judy and Martin-Chew, Louise: judy
watson blood language, Miegunyah Press, Darlton 2009, ISBN
9780522856583
