IF YOU THINK Aboriginal art is just a haphazard collection of dots and lines, think - or better still, look - again. A vital part of Australian culture, the paintings recount the Aborigines' animistic version of creation, or Dreamtime, as handed down from generation to generation and each brushstroke is there for a reason.
The Aborigines believe that at the dawn of time, their mythical Tingari ancestors travelled from west to east 'singing' the mountains, rivers and deserts into existence. Wherever they went, their song remained, creating a web of 'songlines' across the land. When they had finished, their spirits turned into geographical features which became sacred sites.
'These paintings are an expression of each artist's personal history - of their ancestors, their own spirit and their connection to the land. It's who they are,' says Nina Bove, curator of Pintupi Power: Songlines In Contemporary Aboriginal Art, an exhibition running at Zee Stone Gallery on Wyndham Street until March 16. 'They [the paintings] are also aerial maps of the land telling you where to go to find the sacred sites and how to look after them and visual narratives recounting what happened on a particular songline journey. Artists are allowed to change the visual interpretation of a songline but not the story itself.'
Traditionally based on ground and body designs, all paintings for outside the Aboriginal world are created to educate. They start out against a black background, which symbolises the original darkness before Dreamtime and then are 'sung' into existence with predominantly sand-like colours - gold, yellow and orange - and red, black and white.
'You can't just pick up a brush and say you want to be an Aboriginal artist, you have to earn the right,' explains Bove. 'Someone in your family has to be a ceremonial artist before you can be one.'
Melbourne-born Bove is an artist (although not an Aboriginal one) as well as an experienced curator. She became interested in Aboriginal art after researching and helping to edit the 1994 edition of The Encyclopaedia Of Australian Art. She subsequently turned one of the few galleries exhibiting the genre at the time from tourist shop into serious dealership and worked on major shows before setting up on her own.
Her company, Universal Art International, works with artists directly and aims to increase global awareness of indigenous and cross-cultural art through exhibition and display, as well as collecting museum-quality pieces.