Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

114 115 Jonathan Jones: luminaRY Diane Moon Jonathan Jones grew up removed from his Koori heritage, and has largely researched his culture through studying early writings and museum collections. He has long been fascinated with the signs and symbols encoded in traditional imagery, and these designs resonate in his work. He has also been inspired by woven nets and net-making as a communal activity, and has interpreted their patterns in light installations and images sewn onto paper. His light maps trace the network of relationships between communities and individuals, attempting to order the many complex strands of contemporary Australian life. In lumination fall wall weave 2004–06, Jones transforms MDF board, electrical cable, light fittings and bulbs into a compelling work that could initially be read as a minimalist installation. He punctures the white painted board and threads the white cable through in repetitive patterning which becomes activated with the glow of the light bulbs, illuminating the surface and creating shadows that exaggerate the texture. Jones creates a conceptual framework which embodies notions of human connection and commonality; the electricity pulses through the individual interlocked cables to create an entity, with the interplay of light a strong metaphor for community. lumination fall wall weave also expands to bathe the viewer in its light, and it engages with the natural world — the work’s light levels are affected by outside sources, and its dappled patterns mirror and respond to sunlight on leaves. Jones refers to a conversation in 2004 with the artist John Mawurndjul during documentary filming in Arnhem Land, when Mawurndjul expressed his need to sit in ‘deep shade’, explaining an esoteric concept of light falling and being disrupted by his body and spinning off him. Jones found the essence of this concept permeating his thinking. Though electric light is identified with the present and with urbanisation, the way he uses lights may also recall ephemeral memories and guiding spirits that linger long after the demise of the physical body. lumination fall wall weave is based on the artist’s own stitched work, and associated drawings, lumination fall 1F, 2F, 3F 2003–05, in cotton thread on paper. Jones stitched these with his mother’s vintage hand- turned sewing machine. The directional patterns in the drawings of connected elliptical forms provide a clarity through which the larger, complex, light work can be deconstructed. lumination fall wall weave is both thought-provoking and beautiful. Jones deals with concepts of light and dark, black and white, prejudice and division, commenting implicitly in his use of white on white and on the necessity for black Australians to work harder at everything to succeed. There are also historical references in his contemporary urban view: early colonists saw mysterious lights reflected in the black waters — fires that the Cadigal people built on a mud base in their nowey (canoes) as they fished at night. This became a means by which colonists measured the extent of the Aboriginal population on Sydney Harbour. As Jones has explained: These lines of reflection between two different cultures offered a moment — a moment to consider their relationship and retrospectively a moment in time when Aboriginality was acknowledged. The line of reflected light can be seen as the line connecting the two cultures. 1 Jonathan Jones’s lines of light offer the possibility for exchange and optimism rather than the rigid linearity of our Western view of history. Endnote 1. Jonathan Jones, ‘Lightscapes: Installations of lights and community’, SCAN: Journal of Media Arts Culture , <www.scan.net.au/scan/magazine/display.php?journal_id=1> , viewed May 2009. Jonathan Jones Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri people NSW b.1978 lumination fall wall weave 2004–06 Electrical cable, light fittings and bulbs 363 x 720 x 25cm (installed, variable) Acc. 2006.070 The Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award 2006 (winning entry) Purchased 2006 with funds from Xstrata Coal through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation