What may appear to be squiggles and dots in an aboriginal painting, actually, holds a deeper meaning. Originally, the art work was made as maps or religious manuscripts. The artwork is riddled with symbolism. Although, contemporary aboriginal art does not have to have the religious nor the geographical significance, it is still more than just abstract art.
For example, an upside down "U" shaped line is, actually, a person.
If one were to draw a line on the left side of the "U" it would turn into a woman and two lines would make it a man. If someone were to draw several circles within circles it would symbolize a waterhole.
Waterholes are some of the most common symbols in aboriginal art. Water was very scarce in the outback, and extremely necessary. So, a waterhole would be the center of a village and, thus, the center of the artwork. There are many more aboriginal symbols that are very fascinating to know when looking at the ancient artwork. A quick web search for "aboriginal art symbols and their meanings" will bring up numerous results that will aid in the understanding of the artwork.
However, do not feel bad if you still do not understand all of the artwork you will encounter. The artists sometimes would purposely add extra dots and lines to confuse people! A map may have been clearly drawn to the nearest waterhole and then made unreadable by layering colors and textures on top of it.
The colors that were traditionally used were earth tones, red, brown, yellow, black etc. This is because all of the pigments were derived from minerals - the earth - it would make sense that the product would be earth tones. However, contemporary aboriginal art uses a lot of vibrant bright colors as well, such as blue, green, pink, purple and many others. So, if you see a painting that has a lot of bright colors one can guess that it is a contemporary painting, rather than a traditional.
After learning about aboriginal art, I became inspired to try it out for myself! I decided that since I didn't have soft rocks available, nor did I want to kill a kangaroo...that I would use markers. I used the traditional colors as well as the contemporary, and of course filled it with symbolism.
I encourage you to pull out your art supplies and try your hand at it, get your family involved too! It's a great activity for younger children as well. You could either make it very traditional and apply paint using a small stick or you could make it by using any art medium, markers, crayons, pencils, rocks, it's up to you! Have fun while getting a hands on peak into history and art at the same time!
