Remembering forward

Remembering Forward presents works by nine of the most prominent Australian Aboriginal artists: Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Queenie McKenzie, Dorothy Napangardi, Rover Thomas, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula whose work spans the last forty years of contemporary Australian Indigenous painting in the Central and Western Deserts and the Kimberley region. The works are situated in, and generate, a peculiar tension between traditional and modern and past and present. On the one hand, they usually take as their subject the so called 'Dreamtime' of prehistory from which myths of the earth's and humankind's creation have been handed down. In that regard they are deeply traditional. On the other, these artists have radically changed their medium and method of art-making over the last forty years. Inherited practices of sand- and body-painting have been transformed such that the paintings are executed in acrylic on canvas or other portable media. These changes afforded the artists entry to the global art market. Thus they have adjusted to address an outside public and keep the images free of those parts of the Dreamings that, in their own culture, are reserved for the initiated. Two collections of bark paintings not only present this fascinating medium, but also provide the historical context for exhibitions of Indigenous Australian art in Western art museums.