When referring to the natives I prefer the term "Indigenous" with a capital "I." It simply sounds so much better. As I stated, this is an entry about Indigenous art and my love for it.
Art has never been my forte but I sure have a deep appreciation for Indigenous art, especially the dot art. In secondary school, one of my art projects was to do an Australian art project and I had no appreciation whatsoever. I tried to simply draw a picture of Uluru and get it over with. Only later did I appreciate Australian art. This was at the the cultural centure in Batchelor.
Many Indigenous paintings come in traditional colours. Red represents desert sand, brown represents dirt, yellow represents the sun, and white represents clouds and the sky. Indigenous art isn't limited to these colours: blue, green, purple, black, grey, teal, and so forth dominate artwork, postcards, and T-shirts. All manner of animals grace Indigenous art: kangaroos, fish, snakes, koalas, emus, lizards, crocodiles, echidnas and so forth. Some Indigenous art I own is painted on boomerangs. The best piece I own contains an echidna with the sky in the background and to the right is the life cycle of a koala. I appreciate the art as much as the Indigenous Australians themselves. Here's another colourful piece
Water snakes are swimming around a billabong. One of my favourite Indigenous stories is about Wanampi, an ancestral water snake. Indigenous Australian art is both exceptionally creative and deeply fascinating to say the least, and I eagerly await what I'll see when I reach some of the deeply remote communities strewn across the Outback.
