i was never into Aboriginal Art till these paintings caught my eyes at an exhibition yesterday. And i suspect the reason why i was attracted was because of the ‘dots’, my obsession with dots*. Most of the images above were just part of the full painting, imagine the number of dots painted, the amount of effort and patience that was put into each piece. These dots reminded me of Pointillism, except that they were painted in a more uniform way with spaces in between.
Bulgul the Healing Place Exhibition
Hilton Gallery
A first public exhibition of paintings by the women of Bulgul, a remote outstation 200km southwest of Darwin, Australia
* i remember this obsession started during my first year in art school. There were a couple of projects where we had to paint/illustrate using different types of medium – oils, markers, colour pencils, acrylics etc. i was never good at drawing and painting so when i came across the technique of Pointillism in a book, i got excited. i thought since i can’t draw, at least i can dots. i applied it onto an Impressionism painting titled The Four Poplars by Claude Monet – a painting with impressive application of colours. i didn’t know much about Monet then. Of course, when i finally got to see Monet’s actual painting years later at the National Gallery, i fell in love immediately. During my two years in London, whenever i visited the gallery, i never fail to drop by the Impressionism room to look at his paintings. Unknowingly, i would gazed, piece of piece and very often lost track of time. The piece that amazed me the most was his painting of a particular bridge on a gray day (i think it should be either Charing Cross or Waterloo Bridge). The bridge, amidst the fog, was hardly visible, and yet, his colour palette was as impressive as painting water lilies. Monet has remain as one of my favourite artists all these years. But hey, who on earth wouldn’t love Monet?
