NEW TRACKS OLD LAND

Contemporary Prints from Aboriginal Australia

Co-curators: Adrian Newstead & Theo Tremblay

Exhibited at venues throughout the USA and to more than 25 venues throughout Australia.

1992 - 1996

New Tracks Old Land was the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of fine art prints by Aboriginal artists ever organised for Australia and overseas. It was the result of two years planning and negotiation between the curators, the Massachusetts College of Art, the Aboriginal art Management Association, and the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.

In conjunction with its Australian launch at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin (1996) and its later installation at the Araluen Art Centre in Alice Springs, two Getting in to Print Symposia were held, each of which attracted more than 150 artists and arts administrators. The exhibition was accompanied by a 76-page fully illustrated colour catalogue with authoritative essays by the prominent artist and arts administrator, Lin Onus, the exhibition coordinator Chris McGuigan, and the curators Adrian Newstead and Theo Tremblay.

Featured Artworks

Charlie Djurritjini
Yolngu Houses, 1991

  • printer
    Theo Tremblay, Canberra

    medium
    lithograph, printed in black ink, from one stone [or plate]

    dimensions
    29 x 39 cm

    signature and date
    Signed in margin bot.c. "Djurritjini".

Fatima Kantilla
This mob go hunting, 1990

  • printer
    Theo Tremblay, Canberra

    medium
    lithograph on paper

    dimensions
    37.0 x 47.6 cm (image)
    49.7 x 70.1 cm (paper)

    accession number
    944G38

    signature and date
    Signed and dated in margin bot.c. "Fatima Kantilla 1990".

Philip Gudthaykudthay
Wagilag Sisters, 1992

  • printer
    Theo Tremblay, Canberra

    medium
    lithograph on paper

    dimensions
    33 x 25 cm

  • The Wagilag Story

    A major creation story of the Yolngu people is that of the Wagilag Sisters which is associated with the landward freshwater side of the country. This story is the basis of the major religious movement in central Arnhem land. The Wagilag story concerns two sisters who have incestuous relationships with their clansmen. The older sister has a boy as a result, and the younger one falls pregnant. They leave their country and travel towards the sea, naming (and creating) animals, plants and country they encounter on their journey. The younger sister gives birth to a boy just before they reach the waterhole of Mirrarrmina where they make camp. They are unaware that, Mirrarrmina is the sacred home of Yurlunggur (also known as Wititj), the giant python.

    The older sister enters the waterhole, an act which angers Yurlunggur who emerges from the bottom of the waterhole, sucks in water and spits it out into the sky to form the rain clouds of the first monsoon season. The sisters sing and dance in an effort to stop the rain. Yurlunggur rises erect in the sky and suddenly descends on the women, swallowing them, their children and all their belongings. As Yurlunggur raises himself into the sky again, floodwaters cover the earth. Yurlunggur discusses his exploits with the other ancestral pythons and is made to realise that the sisters belong to the same Dhuwa moiety as himself and are therefore prohibited food.

    Yurlunggur becomes ill and crashes to the ground leaving the impression of his body in the earth. he vomits the women and the children and a strong wind blows, whereupon the floodwaters recede. Then the swallowing and vomiting is repeated but this time Yurlunggur regurgitates the women only. They can be seen today as two large boulders at Mirrarrmina.

    Back in their own country the Wagilag men see the commotion in the distance, follow the sisters, make camp and sleep at Mirrarrmina. In their sleep the two Wagilag Sisters come to the men and teach them the songs and dances they had performed to stop the rain.

    The women instruct the men to return home and perform these in ceremony forever more to ensure the continuation of the cycles of nature.

    Text by Djon Mundine Windows on the Dreaming Ellsyd Press Canberra/Sydney 1989.

David Malangi
Ngatili - Black Cockatoos, 1992

  • medium
    handpainted lithograph on paper

    dimensions
    54 x 44cm

  • In Ngatili, Black Cockatoos, Malangi refers to his mother's country Yathalamara where he now lives. The two circles depict the water holes at this site.

Jimmy Pike
Jila Jumu, 1985

  • Medium
    screen-print - one colour: black

    Measurements
    32.7cm x 45.8cm (image)
    50.9cm x 67.5cm (paper)

Philip Gudthaykudthay
Wititj - Olive Python, 1992

  • medium
    lithograph, printed in black ink, from one stone

    dimensions
    59.0 x 43.0 cm (printed image)

Paddy Fordham Wainburranga
Rarp, 1991

  • medium
    lithograph, printed in black ink, from one stone [or plate]

    dimensions
    47 x 32.5 cm (printed image)

  • "This (Gnamorotto) is a devil, it looks like a kangaroo. You can kill him but you have to be bloody clever. He picks on weak people. His hands and feet are used to cut out people's insides - intestines and heart. You can see him in the sky at night - a shooting star. He flies with a watti (lightning stick) and clap stick. He makes thunder."

    Story as told by the artist

Bede Tungutalum
Self Portrait - Owl Man, 1988

  • medium
    Linocut relief print on paper

    dimensions
    51 x 41 cm

    edition information
    Edition of 50

Gloria Petyarre
Untitled from Utopia Suite

  • medium
    Linocut on paper

    dimensions
    30 x 45 cm

  • The Utopia Suite captured the strength and ability of the participating artists and the diversity of their imagery in a new medium. Gloria Petyarre and Ada Bird produced the first silk screen prints. Both experimented with the use of flat even colour and worked directly onto pieces of paper. The printer then transferred the image to the screen. Gloria's first image of body paint was simple and strong and used the new medium to great effect. Her spare use of linear pattern and dots was most evocative.

Arone Raymond Meeks
Shot in the Dark, 1990

  • medium
    Linocut with Caustic Etching

    dimensions
    61 x 50 cm

  • Shot in the Dark was originally drawn in Paris. Before I left Sydney a Koori man was shot in his home during a police raid, and died. He was later found innocent of any crime. The hanging boomerangs in the print are men with bullet holes beside them; the spirit of these men are entering the barramundi, they are returning to their Dreaming. The bottom of the tower is the Aboriginal flag. The flag is very important to me as it unifies all Aboriginal people and is an expression of our sovereignty.

    At the root of all the problems between Aboriginal and European Australians is the unresolved issue of land rights. It is a theme that I come back to time and time again in my work. During my travels both in Australia and overseas I have found that land rights is the major contemporary theme facing all indigenous artists."

    Story as told by the artist.

Pooaraar Bevan Hayward
Through the Mists of Time - State II, 1990

  • medium
    Lithograph on paper

    dimensions
    58 x 39 cm

  • "My prints are based on the spiritual side of Aboriginal life, the prevailing bushland spirits and features of rock art. This art depicts long extinct animals and birds and half-spirit/ half-people, half-animal/ half-people, half-spirit/ half-animal, half-people/ half-bird, half-spirit/ half-bird entities.

    They are a line of different atom structures starting from the ancestral atom structure (beings) through different stages of the evolving process of life. These changes were caused by the great upheavals of the earth over a very long period of time. Each different spirit tells about a period of one of these great upheavals of the earth until we finally come to the contemporary Aboriginal.

    My aim is to show that Aboriginal people were never migrants and that they evolved in Australia and this is their rightful land."

    Quoted in Aboriginality. Jennifer Isaacs, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane 1989.