The Paintings and Stories
Each painting is a both a physical and mythical representation of the artist's memories intertwined with their family's history. These memories are strongly tied to the relationships between culture, environment and Tjukurpa or Creation Time stories. Tjukurpa stories explain how the world came to be, how their Ancestors crossed the lands, creating the landscape such as the waterholes, sand dunes and mountains. Tjukurpa is past, present and future and is passed down from generation to generation.
Tjukurpa also lays down the law for human behaviour, how to relate to people, animals and plants, how to look after the land and in some cases how to prepare foods.
In this region dots were painted in conjunction with other designs on the walls and roofs of rock shelters, on flat rock surfaces and in the paintings/drawings originally worked in the sand. Now they are used to cover entire sections. Dots have a number of origins including replicating, representing bird down, typography or vegetation. They may also mask sacred designs or used to produce visually stimulating effects.
The designs our artists paint can be interpreted in many ways depending on the viewer's knowledge of ritual, typography, food sources and associated Tjukurpa. They may show the practicalities of everyday life, intimate details of the land and may be far more complex in meaning than explained by the artist. This is because the designs may contain meanings that are intended for public revelation and hide those that are not. The paintings may also show the richness of food resources or the seasonality of the landscape as seen in many of our paintings depicting bush tucker themes.
The paintings don't have a horizon as expected in European art, hence the viewing or hanging orientation is not important unless indicated by the artist. It could be said that the paintings should be viewed from above as though it was an aerial view, as it was painted.
Amata's Tjukurpa is the Honey Ant Ancestor.
A selection of our paintings can be purchased from our Gallery & Sales section. Please refer to our Terms and conditions for information on purchasing online.
Symbolic Elements
Our paintings consist of symbolic elements and follow design conventions that vary slightly from artists to artist. At Amata the most common elements are:
