A view of the Wilpena Pound formation in South Australia. Photograph © O. Louis Mazzatenta

Aboriginal Art
By David Betz

Some years ago, I was hunkered down over a painting I'd just bought, popping the staples out of the stretcher bars in front of the gas station in Lajamanu, a dusty Aboriginal township smack in the middle of the Tanami Desert in Australia's Northern Territory. The painting, "Budgerigar Dreaming," was a gem, a beatific riot of bird tracks on a shimmering field of white dots. Ronnie Lawson, an artist whom I had never met, a big rangy man in a black ten-gallon hat and cowboy boots, came up behind me and began singing the story of the painting in a low, insistent voice. When he finished his song, a broad smile creased his lived-in face, and he said, "I know this story, the story of this place. This is my country, this is my Dreaming."

For years visitors to the Land Down Under have been dazzled by the abstract paintings made by its desert tribes and have been thrilled to discover a deep significance behind the work—the spiritual connection Aborigines have with the land, its flora and fauna, and the natural elements. Each Aborigine is responsible for "holding" fragments of a complex mythological mosaic known as the Dreaming, the creation stories of how their starkly beautiful land was formed and how its people, plants, and animals came to be as they are today.

Almost 30 years ago, at the settlement of Papunya, about 155 miles northwest of Alice Springs, the contemporary Aboriginal art movement sprang to life. Aboriginal elders, afraid that their culture would be lost, chose to permanently record these ceremonial stories, first on small Masonite boards and later on canvas. Art that had been produced for thousands of years in a ceremonial context, on the body and the ground, would now be seen by the outside world.

By the 1980s Australian museums began to take Aboriginal art seriously, and in the last five years it has achieved worldwide recognition, gallery exhibitions consistently sell out, and an auction market has developed at Sotheby's. According to Aboriginal art expert Tim Klingender, "Works by the most celebrated artists of the '80s and '90s, whose paintings sold not too long ago for a few thousand or even hundreds of dollars, now fetch prices in excess of $60,000." One of the best-kept secrets in contemporary art is secret no more.

Australia presents many opportunities to buy Aboriginal art, but the most exciting way involves going to the Aboriginal communities themselves, which are strung out over a vast stretch of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The most effective way to get there is by light aircraft (Didgeri Air Art Tours is the way to go). This is unquestionably adventure travel, but as Didgeri pilot Helen Read, an English transplant to the outback, says, "From the air, you can breathe in the enormity of this landscape, its geographical intricacies. What you're seeing is the language of Aboriginal painting."

David Betz is the curator of Songlines Aboriginal Art Gallery, San Francisco-Amsterdam (www.aboriginal-art.com).

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.