Understanding Colours in Aboriginal Art

Colour is deemed the basis of Aboriginal art as it enshrines the function of conveying meaning and identifying community members. The flamboyant colour employed in these artworks serves quite more than the aesthetic style because it is linked to culture, spirituality, and the environment.

From simple paint found in the natural environment to contemporary acrylic, every colour used in Aboriginal art has a concept behind each colour, translating the contemporary world to a very prehistoric one that has existed for 60,000 years.

The Aboriginals' art is complex in that they incorporate designs and patterns in their work and have an aesthetic with deep meaning that relates to land and Dreamtime stories. Deeply encoded in such art is a clever, complex usage of colour that is not just for the show but is instead a core component of Aboriginal culture and cosmology.

What are the Colours used in Aboriginal Art?

Aboriginal art colours can be broadly categorised into two types: between the prehistoric ochre colours and the contemporary catalogue of colour. Contemporary synthetic paints add not only advanced semiotic aspects as opposed to earth’s elements of traditional palette but also extend the ability of aboriginal artists to depict their dreams and ideas in a contemporary way.

Traditional Colour Palettes and Their Meaning

The traditional aboriginal colourings are done from natural dyes that are obtained from the natural resources in this environment. These colours have cultural meaning and suggest various elements of Aboriginal people’s perspective of the world. The collection and preparation of these pigments require certain rites, and the knowledge of how it should be accomplished is passed down through the generations.

Black

Derived from charcoal or manganese oxide Black symbolises night, shadow people or darkness before creation. According to several Dreamtime stories, black mostly represents the nothingness from which life originated. It is also used to represent shooting or cast shadows, caves and more so the images of pre-historical figures.

Red

Obtained from iron oxide or red ochre, red stands for blood, earth and ceremonies. It is also used in connection with life energy and spiritual strength. Red ochre is especially important in artwork and body decoration during occasions and events. Red ochre washing sites are treated with some form of veneration and the pigment itself is exchanged between different populations of Aboriginal people.

Yellow

Extracted from clay or yellow ochre this colour signifies the sun, woman, some foods, particularly yam. In dream time stories it is commonly related to a process of regeneration. Yellow can also be associated with the changes of season, for instance, the dry season in northern Australia.

White

Extracted from kaolin clay or calcite, white can represent the clouds, the sky or, more symbolically, the bones of ancestors. It is related to concepts such as purity, holy knowledge and spiritual warfare. All over Indigenous Australia, white symbolises stars and celestial objects in many Aboriginal artworks.

The aboriginal colour order typically follows the importance of these colours in ceremonies and storytelling, with black and red often being the most significant.  This hierarchy, however, may differ between aboriginal nations and may even depend on the accessibility of some forms of pigments in the region.

Modern Colour Palettes and Their Meaning

The switch from natural pigments to synthetic paints, especially throughout the work coming out of the central desert art movement in the 70s and 80s, was an opportunity to expand the richness and variations of the colour. This change was not only a change in the material of the art but it was a dramatic progress in the Aboriginal art style.

This latter change was spearheaded by artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa who replaced brown and beige with blue, green and purple. This expansion has allowed for a better ability to tell stories and express the form in ways that are more nuanced and related to their roots.

Blue: Oftentimes symbolises water, sky and sometimes totemic figures with relation to the water and sky.

Green: Stands for vegetation, bush foods or new life, especially after the end of the rainy season.

Purple: Occasionally used to describe some fruits, flowers or spiritual meanderings as well.

These modern colours have enabled artists to paint more beautiful visual pieces that appease the senses of present-day cultures while telling a very rich story. Synthetic paints have also helped artists work with size and achieve new techniques, thereby advancing the post-1990s Aboriginal art movement.

Colour Symbolism in Different Aboriginal Tribes

The use of colours in Aboriginal art varies among different tribes based on their regional beliefs, totems, and the natural environment of their country. This diversity reflects the rich tapestry of Aboriginal cultures across Australia, each with its unique artistic traditions and colour symbolism.

• Central Desert Art: They stick to earthly colours and ochre to mimic the desert-like environment of the area. The artists from this area, especially from the Papunya Tula movement, consider the use of warm colours like shades of red, orange and yellow to depict their homeland which is the desert. Due to the hot climate, light-warm colours and black or white contrast produce powerful impressions, which resemble the climate of the desert.
• Arnhem Land: Feature bright, contrasting colours such as red, yellow and white, inspired by plants and animals of the area. The art from this area depicts animals seen through viscera or as a so-called X-Ray style. Painting in bright colours enables one to distinguish one or another area of the animal’s body and significant spiritual properties.
• The Kimberley Region: Their primary use of colours are blue and green which symbolise water and sky to reflect their significance in the local area. The Wandjina figures unique to this area are depicted with large eyes and without mouths and are executed in white painting on a black background.
• Torres Strait Islands: People from this region like to depict the sea as a vivid blue and green which is quite justified as this culture is deeply connected with it. Red and black are also used to reflect masks and ceremonial artefacts paintings.
• Tiwi Islands: Common in Tiwi art is the great emphasis placed on a kind of geometric representation which is illustrated in lines of ochre colours, which are red, yellow and white. But today, other Tiwi artists also decorate their work with brighter colours making them fresh and innovative.

Patterns and Colour Combinations

Patterns combined with specific colours give extra depth to the stories depicted in the aboriginal artworks. Different patterns and colours bring additional references and philosophies to the topic, making the viewers who understand these signs see some hidden meanings.

Concentric Circles

Primarily associated with meeting points or places such as water holes or camps. It is also believed that colours used can point to the type of location or its importance. For instance, red circles might mean a holy ground, blue or white circles mean a waterhole and yellow circles may represent a campsite

Dot Patterns

Dot patterns represent stars, sparks or burning embers. The colour of the dots may signify different aspects or even different Dreamtime narratives. Dot painting also helps hide sacred artwork and people only show some of the story to people who are not allowed to see any more of it. The placement and variations of dots can lead to giving an optical illusion of motion or of depth. In dot pattern art, white dots stand for stars, red dots may mean fire sparks and yellow dots symbolise grains or seeds.

Line Patterns

Line patterns may illustrate the path of a totem or travel, songs or tracks and boundaries. The colour of these patterns inserted can point to the type of journey or the terrain that has been crossed. Curved shapes might depict the wind or water currents while the straight shapes depict human or animal movement or track. Brown or red lines may correspond to the path through the desert, blue wavy lines represent rivers or currents of the ocean. Green lines could mean trees, plants or passing or presently residing ancestral spirits in a certain area.

Animal and Plant Motifs

Some colours within these motifs depict the exact appearance of the particular object of depiction, though some could have other symbolic significance.

The kangaroo might be painted in red ochre, to at least link it to the ground. A snake could be painted yellow and black, having diamond shapes on it to represent its type and its religious importance

Some plants' colours might even be depicted in what is seen as different shades of green and Yellow in order to portray the different developmental stages or changes of particular seasons.

Abstract Patterns and Designs

These can depict the Dreamtime tales or relatively ritual body paint motifs. Colours used are very much part of conveying most of the meaning embedded in these abstract forms. Many of these designs are intricate in that each level depicts different aspects of the story or the function of the ceremony, respectively.

Some cross-hatching patterns as seen in Arnhem land art may use different colours to create relationships between the earth, sea, and sky. Intricate designs in Central Desert art often use contrasting colours to create optical effects that suggest the shimmering of ancestral power

The Influence of Dreamtime on Colour

The Dreamtime stories are an essential component of aboriginal art; each colour interprets and depicts components of the Dreamtime. Tjukurrpa or the Dreamtime is a composition of the creation epoch, totemic, the beings, and the spirituality in the creation epoch or present as a continuum with present and future.

To the artists of the Dreamtime, colours are not mere depictions but give reference to certain themes, stories, locations or beliefs of the Dreamtime culture. Several renowned artists have made significant contributions to this tradition, each bringing their unique interpretation of Dreamtime colours:

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Described for her dramatic ability to paint different colours to depict changes in season and flowers of her country, Emily Kame Kngwarreye greatly impacted Aboriginal art in the late 70s and early 80s. Her works included bright dots and lines in different colours in her works, where every colour symbolises something in her Dreamtime narratives and the various cycles in her ancestral Aboriginal homeland known as Alhalkere.

Her preference for orangey-red, pinks and purples has frequently referred to flowers of the pencil yam plant, an important aspect of her Dreaming. In her work, whites and yellows meant the seed and pollen of native plants often representing people of colour. The variety of colours, reds, and blacks in some of the pieces represented the earth and its buried treasure.

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

First to incorporate dots into architectural designs to give multiple interpretations to Dreamtime stories. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri was known to have accommodated many Dreaming stories within a single painting, though he divided the stories by colour.

He preferred to paint cool blue and green colours that denoted the Dreamings of water sources. Bright oranges and reds portrayed the desert and the journeys of the ancestors White dots usually formed a complex pattern on most of his artwork and this gave the impression of shimmering as if brought about by ancestral spirits.

Sally Gabori

Employed bright shades to paint her native country and her forebears of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her graphic work emerged relatively late in her life but her highly charged, romanticised abstract style immediately served to propel her to fame and prominence and turnaround Australia’s art about its country and Dreaming.

She associated bright yellows in her work with the sun and its crossing the sky or rather space. Kaiadilt people relied heavily on seas hence deep blues and greens were the dominant colours in the artwork. The colours of reds and pinks she used in the paintings often signified that shot of the coloured at different times of the day.

Rover Thomas

Used browns and ochres to reflect the creation stories of the Kimberley area. His sparse and earth-toned work showed extraordinary paintings that were rich in meaning and depicted his relationship with the country.

His use of black often depicted the sky or the cavities of the earth where the forebears are located. Warm ochre yellows and reds in his work conveyed the ground and its holy places, and the colour white was used selectively and wisely to signify stars, clouds, or even ancestor’s bone

Such artists, alongside many others, have depicted how particularly the Aboriginal art of Australia, it is not simply the decorative addition of the colours but a meaning that carries a rich load of memory, spirit, identity and aboriginal relationship to the land. Their work proves the reason why the label of aboriginal art persists to date and why it still holds on to the principle tenets of Dreamtime despite the transformations that are evident in contemporary society.

Colour and Contemporary Aboriginal Art

Contemporary aboriginal art has also developed in the aspect of colours, where the traditional meanings were enhanced by new artistic ideas. Contemporary artists are aware of the symbolism of colours but while most of them adopt the colours of antiquity other parts have adopted a more expansive colour range tied between two epochs.

This evolution also shows that the Aboriginal culture is a living one in that it is constantly evolving to meet the needs of its members, at the same time holding on to its most important tribal tenets. A number of contemporary aboriginal artists do not strictly adhere to the use of colour but include it as a way of referencing this work.

Some key aspects of colour use in contemporary Aboriginal art include:

• Expanded Palette: Modern artists employ a full range of colours that range from neon to metals. There is a certain freedom in materiality and the use of colour and, therefore, it can address more people.
• Blending Traditions: Certain painters use ochres along with modern synthetic dyes: the works are symbiotic of ancient and postmodernism.
• Urban Influence: Urban Aboriginal artists also paint city colours and these are greys for concrete and bright colours for graffiti and street art.
• Digital Media: Digital art is one new form that some Aboriginal artists are beginning to consider how the traditional symbolism of colours can be used in digital art, to produce art in a new manner.
• Environmental Commentary: Modern artists choose colour to depict environmental concerns with green and shades of blue to draw attention to soil and water protection.
• Personal Storytelling: With regard to colour, the application of these markers is heavily biographical and personal where family history is composed with cultural history.

Notable contemporary Aboriginal artists who have pushed the boundaries of colour use include:

• Lin Onus: Onus is probably best known for his cubist photographic realism alongside traditional Aboriginal iconography in Western art; a dynamic range of colours created powerful contrasts within his works.
• Gordon Bennett: His work tended to combine classic Aboriginal art forms with pop art colours and images, distorting the post-colonial view of Aboriginality.
• Judy Watson: In her abstract pieces, she mostly utilises thin colour washes to depict the relationship between body, memory and landscape.
• Tony Albert: He uses bright, pop-art colours often in his art and his pieces are focused on indigenous people and their presence in the modern world.
• Daniel Boyd: Boyd has gained popularity for his pointillist approaches, and the colour palette is intentionally narrow in an attempt to reimagine history from the Aboriginal standpoint.

The artworks of these artists, among others, show how colour in contemporary Aboriginal art is still able to exist in its greatest importance to Aboriginal culture and at the same time adapt to the new styles and issues in the world today.

The depiction of colour in contemporary Aboriginal art is another way in which the traditional and the modern, the ancient and the contemporary interlock. Thus it stands as a living testament to how the continued Aboriginal culture still relates its stories and continues to have connections with country and heritage, in creative and dynamic ways.

Embracing the Spirit of Aboriginal Art at Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery

It has to be recognized that the use of colour in Aboriginal art is a manifestation of the timeless strength and flexibility of this talented nation. Even in such artistic and aesthetic colours as the simple ochres of black and white, or the bright colours of contemporary compositions, Aboriginal colours remain narrative, cultural, intergenerational and historical. It is only by knowing what these colours represent that one is able to appreciate the complexity of the tradition and relevance of Aboriginal art today.

At our Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery, we appreciate the richness of colour in Aboriginal art. Our collection comprises pieces from both the traditional and modern art which give the visitors an insight of the genuine aboriginal culture passed on through the art.

Visit Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery and see the impact that Aboriginal artists have on you. Call us at 03 9497 5111 or contact our website. Get in touch with a slice of Australia’s cultural past and marvel at the wealth and exuberance of Indigenous artistic creativity.