Floating life: contemporary Aboriginal fibre art

48 Again, to stand before lumination fall wall weave 2004–06 by Jonathan Jones is to experience similarly the awe of light’s sacred energy. We are drawn to move closer to its luminosity and away from our world of shadows. There are stories of transformations from the everyday to the sacrosanct and of the liberation of crossing boundaries and embracing the hybridity of life. ‘Floating Life’ shimmers with abundant gifts. The extraordinary expressions of culture and country, and the vibrant shapes, colours and patterns created with skill and joy in the making, are waiting for our enjoyment. But is there something else hidden deep within all this? For me, the works in this exhibition are also profoundly subversive. They come to us from artists whose people have been shamefully mistreated by generations of white Australians. While the beauty they give to us in a true generosity of spirit intoxicates our senses, it also confronts us with the continuing power of the Aboriginal cultures that white Australians have so callously sought to destroy. Standing before the works, we are trapped between pleasure and shame. Danie Mellor Mamu/Ngadjonji people QLD/ACT b.1971 A captive audience 2005 Pencil and crayon on Magnani paper 71 x 101cm Acc. 2005.193 Purchased 2005 Opposite Abe Muriata Girramay people QLD b.1952 Jawun (Basket) 2006 Twined split lawyer cane with lawyer cane handle 51 x 31cm (including handle) Acc. 2008.185 Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund The following references were consulted in preparing this essay: Brenda L Croft, Tactility: Two Centuries of Indigenous Objects, Textiles and Fibre , National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2003. Ian Keen, ‘The Djang’kawu story in art and performance’, in Sylvia Kleinert and Margot Neale (eds), The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture , Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.136–41. Apolline Kohen, ‘Kuninjku women and the power of making art’, in Hetti Perkins et al, Crossing Country: The Alchemy of Western Arnhem Land Art [exhibition catalogue], Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2004, pp.161–9. Margie West, ‘“It belongs to no one else”: The dynamic art of the Tiwi’, in Hetti Perkins and Margie West (eds), One Sun One Moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia [exhibition catalogue], Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007. Margie West, ‘String lines: Continuing developments in Aboriginal fibre art’, Artlink , vol.25, no.2, 2005, pp.56–9 Stephen David Ross, The Gift of Beauty: The Good as Art , State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1996. Nicholas Rothwell, ‘Secrets of a master carver’. Australian , 9 March 2006, p.14 Nicholas Rothwell, ‘More than dreaming: bringing to light a blaze of beauty’, Australian Literary Review , 4 June 2008. Judith Ryan, Power & Beauty, Indigenous Art Now , Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, 2007. Hetti Perkins et al, Crossing Country: The Alchemy of Western Arnhem Land Art [exhibition catalogue], Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2004.