Wednesday, May 12, 2004

The Real Dreaming

Rupert Murdoch has a monopoly on the newspapers of Rockhampton. The local Bulletin, the state-based Courier-Mail & the national Australian are all from the Murdoch stable. So I've given up reading the newspaper on a daily basis since I've moved here.
I do, however, get the Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. On a Sunday. But at least it gives me an informed & not-too-biased view of what's going on in the world as well as being a tendril still linking me to Sydney.
The thing I miss most here is the activity of a big city. Not that you ever got to see/hear much of it because there was, literally, too much going on to encompass it all. But it seemed to pervade the atmosphere...
Which brings me to the purpose of this post. In last Saturday's SMH there was a review of an exhibition by the late Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Clifford Possum is probably the greatest of the modern Aboriginal artists, & Aboriginal art, paradox though it seems because the subject matter & the style are almost totally based on an ancient tradition (though one that is constantly refreshed because it still governs the way of life), is one of the strengths of contemporary painting.
This current exhibition is described as "astonishing, eye-tripping & vertigo-inducing". One of the paintings reproduced in the SMH was Kangaroo Story (Mt Denison). A wider selection of Clifford Possum's work can be found here.
There are many sites & many books dedicated to Aboriginal painting of the last thirty years. Seeking at least some of these out will bring astonishing rewards.

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