On View Magazine 07-09.2015 | Page 56

No Boundaries

grandeur are small Aboriginal
communities with enchantingly sonorous names such as
Wirrimanu, Warakurna, and
Kiwirrkurra. Some are home
to as many as 5,000 people,
others to no more than a handful of families. Living close to
the lands that nourished their
ancestors, many Aboriginal
Australians live in conditions
of horrific poverty, marred by
overcrowded and dilapidated
housing, woeful sanitation,
substance abuse, chronic illness, violence, and an epidemic of youth suicide. Aboriginal
art is the unlikely product of
this interzone. It is the cosmopolitan art of the frontier,

“[Aboriginal art] remains embedded in a landscape that
few outsiders will ever see, rooted in an arcane
cosmology that few will ever understand.”—Henry F. Skerritt
BILLY JOONGOORA THOMAS, Wangkajungka.
Born ca.1920. Died 2012. Waarna (Place for Good Food), 1997.
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas,
18-7/8 x 14-3/16”, © Billy Thomas estate,
courtesy Red Rock Art, Kununurra.

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designed to travel the world to
art fairs and biennials, while
remaining embedded in a landscape that few outsiders will
ever see, rooted in an arcane
cosmology that few will ever
understand.”