Bark Painting

Unknown

1940s–1950s · Bark, paint · Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Bark painting in Arnhem Land is one of the most dynamic contemporary art movements in Australia. Artists paint their stories on lengths of fibrous bark harvested from the trunks of eucalyptus trees. Groote Eylandt, in Anindilyakwa Country off the coast of northeast Arnhem Land, has been a center of bark painting since the 1920s. The heavy black background and dashed lines of red, white and yellow ochers that comprise this painting are characteristic of Anindilyakwa bark paintings from the middle of the twentieth century. The black pigment comes from the manganese that has been mined on Groote Eylandt for decades. Following the Second World War, some artists began extracting black pigment from the carbon in batteries that had been left on the island by Australian and American soldiers.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1940s–1950s

Medium

Bark, paint

Culture

Ingura people

Department

Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

Credit line

The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979