Under Southern Skies Gallery Guide
Welcome to Under Southern Skies: Aboriginal and Western Scientific
Perspectives of the Australian Night Sky. The Kluge-Ruhe
Aboriginal Art Collection and the Astronomy Department, of the
University of Virginia, are pleased to collaborate on this unique
project, which unites indigenous Australians' paintings with
photographs taken through telescopes by Western scientists.
This exhibit came about when Astronomy Department faculty members Steven Majewski and Ricky Patterson visited the Under Southern Skies exhibit, on display at the Kluge-Ruhe Collection, earlier this year. This exhibit focused solely on the work of Aboriginal artists. In collaboration with the Astronomy Department, the focus has shifted towards a juxtaposition of two seemingly different modes of astronomical representation; Aboriginal art and telescopic photographs.
When possible, we have paired astronomical photographs with Aboriginal renderings of the same constellation or celestial body. The visitor may compare the two representations and appreciate the beauty and aesthetic richness in both types of images. In some cases, such as with the painting Seven Sisters and Morning Star Story and The Pleiades Star Cluster photo, the Western and Aboriginal renderings are remarkably similar in form. Primarily, Aboriginal artists are concerned with conveying the mythological significance of a Dreamtime event, so realistic or figurative style is often secondary to content and narrative.
The Dreamtime, or Dreaming, refers to the time of world creation or the Aboriginal ancestral past. In the Dreamtime, the Aboriginal Ancestors, who had been asleep under the earth, rose to the surface and created all the features of the earth through their actions. They also set down laws for conduct and behavior that Aboriginal people continue to respect and heed today.
Aboriginal Ancestral Beings are difficult to categorize in Western terms. Ancestral Beings existed in human form, but some were closely linked with specific animals whose form, at times, they assumed. Most Ancestral Beings had powers beyond those of ordinary humans, yet they were not free from human weaknesses such as emotions. Strife among Ancestral Beings, as well as violence, betrayal and punishment, are often cited as the cause of the creation of mountains, rivers, valleys or stars.
The Ancestors whose stories are described in Under Southern Skies are often those that once lived on the Earth in human form, but who changed into objects in the night sky. Such is the case with the story of the Seven Sisters, known to Westerners as the Pleiades constellation. The Seven Sisters traveled together in the Australian bush, but were followed by a lecherous man. To escape him, they turned into stars.
Because there are many Aboriginal languages and subgroups in Australia, each with their own set of ancestral stories, a single constellation means different things to different groups. This is the case with the Magellanic Clouds. In northern Australia, the Clouds signify camp sites of an elderly man and woman, while in the central desert, Aborigines describe the Clouds as camps of brothers who come to Earth to punish lawbreakers and reward good individuals.
Aboriginal painting styles and materials also help characterize different regions of Australia. Aboriginal artists from Arnhem Land in northern Australia paint with natural ochres on bark in a linear style using a great deal of cross-hatching. Cross-hatching is a technique in which a series of parallel lines create shading and depth depending on how close or far apart the lines are. Paintbrushes are often made from a few hairs tied to a stick, which allow the artists to control their thin, even lines as they carefully drag the brush along the bark.
Central Australian Aboriginal art is characterized by the "dot style," where artists usually use acrylic paint on canvas. The brushes used for this style are often small sticks whose ends have been softened to pick up paint more efficiently, but which still form almost perfect circles when dabbed vertically onto the canvas. Short bristled synthetic brushes are also used.
If you would like to see more Aboriginal art, please visit the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection and Study Center at 400 Peter Jefferson Place on Route 250 East. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 9am — 2pm. 244-0234.
Through August 21, 1999 the exhibits BUSHFIRE! Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kluge-Ruhe Collection and The "Whitegate Mob": Paintings by Rod Moss are on display.
