Arts: The Uneasy Return of the Native ; the Revival in Aboriginal Art Is Celebrated in Australia's Olympic Arts Festival, but Its Values Are Not

Marks, Kathy, The Independent (London, England)

In 1971 a young white schoolteacher, Geoffrey Bardon, gave brushes and acrylic paints to aborginal elders in the remote outpost of Papunya and encouraged them to use traditional imagery to set down their sacred "Dreamtime" stories. Idealistic as Bardon was, he never envisaged the consequences: a spectacular and far-reaching renaissance of Aboriginal painting. The work created on scraps of old board at the dusty settlement 160 miles west of Alice Springs became a catalyst for the flowering of the Western Desert movement, whose "dot paintings" of the vast Australian interior have placed Aboriginal art on the international map.

Papunya unleashed the artistic talents of …

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Publication information: Article title: Arts: The Uneasy Return of the Native ; the Revival in Aboriginal Art Is Celebrated in Australia's Olympic Arts Festival, but Its Values Are Not. Contributors: Marks, Kathy - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: August 22, 2000. Page number: 13. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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