Even from the very first exhibition they view, most people will recognize Aboriginal art symbols as a crucial component of Aboriginal artworks.
Information papers are frequently included to assist explain the images in the Aboriginal paintings.
We may understand the symbols and their origins by standing in front of some of those magnificent pieces and modern artworks that originate from the Western and Central Desert.
That makes it clear that a narrative is being developed, and perhaps it also explains some of the linkages to this indigenous art.
But until the artist explains how those symbols fit together to form a narrative to buy Aboriginal art, it will not translate into Aboriginal art sale.
I believe the best we can hope for is a sense that this artwork might tell the tale of an ancestor travelling or possibly a dreaming location.
That meaning belongs to the artists and their personal tribal group who share that experience since it is tough for an outsider to move past it.
The symbols are the heart of the work of art and partially convey its meaning.
They are merely a component of the artist’s language to convey the story on another level.
Before those symbols disclose what the artist is referring to, we must know the significance of those specific paintings.
Western Desert Symbols: The Beginning
Even though the many diverse Aboriginal cultures that may be found in Australia have quite different symbols, some helpful beginning points might help decipher probable meanings.
Hunting & Tracking
Aboriginal people of the Central and Western Deserts employ various symbols from their history of hunting and tracking. This implies that the tracks that animals and humans have left behind in the sand have come to symbolize those tracks.
Women’s Ceremony by Joylene Reid Napangardi
Animals
The traces that Aboriginal people leave behind serve as a representation of them. An emu’s footprint has a three-pointed V shape.
Kangaroos leave behind a pair of tick forms that are mirror images of one another with a lengthy line connecting them where their tail drags.
A small marsupial, such as a possum, will leave an E-shaped mark, a line with four lines extending from the claw marks.
Emu Tracks
Many symbols used in the Central Desert were created through sand painting, in which tales and legends from the Dreamtime were depicted on the ground to pass on knowledge to successive generations.
These tales frequently focused on Creation Ancestors who roamed the countryside and erected significant landmarks, many of which were connected to totemic animals.
The clan elders historically retold these tales using the symbols that contemporary Aboriginal artists employ in their works.
The symbols were also painted ceremonially on the bodies of dancers who acted out the tales, strengthening the bonds between the people and the enduring tales of how their countries came to be.
People
The U shape left by a person sitting cross-legged on the ground has come to signify a human. Which gender the U shape depicts depends on the objects they are holding and placing beside them.
A lady may be standing next to an oval-shaped coolamon dish and a digging rod; this set of symbols, which resembles the letter UOI, indicates a woman with her hunting equipment.
A guy may carry boomerangs and spears; therefore, his symbols might be U || (.
Minyma Tjukurrpa by Marlene Young Nungurrayi
A circle or a group of concentric circles is typically used to indicate where people assemble.
These might stand in for a campsite, a fire pit, a gathering spot, or a watering hole. When a person travels between several locations, the route can be represented by parallel lines connecting the circles.
Clans
In Arnhem Land, in the far north of the Northern Territory, specific clan patterns are ceremonially utilized to indicate a person’s ties to a particular clan.
When paired with specific totemic animal designs, these patterns, composed of small lines drawn in specific ochre colors, can represent elements like fire and water, and all identify which clan the wearer belongs to.
A person’s usage of symbols reveals their relationship to the Dreaming story that informs their clan’s Creation mythology and reveals important aspects of their identity.
Women’s Ceremony by Joylene Reid Napangardi
How Aboriginal Art Evolved in Different Regions?
Beginning with Papunya in the early 1970s and continuing to Kintore and Kiwirrkurra in the early 1980s, the Western Desert style heavily depends on symbols. That’s how it began, and the emphasis remained the same throughout the following forty years.
Other tribes have abandoned using symbols and narratives to communicate stories in their paintings in favor of a more liberal or developmental approach.
There was a transition even after the Central Desert movement style reached Balgo in Western Australia.
A different technique replaced the Papunya Tula paintings’ characteristic tight dot painting. The dots were painted haphazardly and connected by sweeping a brush across the panel.
In this instance, artists used the pre-existing structured style and gave it a creative or individual twist to propel the work in a different direction.