Optical Effects in Indigenous Art – a personal appreciation

Another thoughtful and illuminating post from Susanne Pearce. Susanne writes: While the optical effects used by artists of the Op Art Movement are well known, many indigenous artists have also produced, intuitively, paintings with optical effects which equally dazzle and confuse the eye and mind.

So often I find myself in awe of works which mesmerise, vibrate, and shimmer and which demonstrate a panoply of optical effects:  of line, pattern, colour, contrast, edge effects and more.  They are painted directly onto the support, without resort to rulers, pencils, masking tape, or colour theory.  No research, studies and sketches required!  No sense of “mistakes’ being corrected.  It surprises me that in discussion of indigenous art, the aesthetics are often overlooked – probably because there is such richness of content and context:  creation narratives, mapping of country, ceremony, history of art centres, biographies of artists and more.  One exception I came across while writing this article, and on which I drew, is a very useful paper by Judith Ryan, at: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/the-raw-and-the-cooked-the-aesthetic-principle-in-aboriginal-art/

Here I shall deal only with the aesthetics of a small number of Aboriginal works with examples below of both bark paintings and of those on canvas from the central and western desert regions. To fully appreciate their optical qualities it is of course necessary to spend time in front of the paintings themselves rather than a digital image. 

For the Yolngu people of East Arnhem land, to achieve the quality of shimmer or shining through cross-hatching (rarrk) is to evoke ancestral power.   A good example is found in Madarrpa, by Djambawa  Marawili.  The many, repeated, horizontal patterning of linked, cross-hatched diamonds against darker backgrounds found in the top half of the painting create a flickering and shimmer.  The irregularities of the patterns serve to emphasise this destabilising effect.  Compare them with the vertical rows of diamonds in the lower part of the work.  These are more regular and have less rarrk and less shimmer, but nevertheless are striking.   

Here is another good example. The artist Wandjuk Marika produces the shimmer or brilliance, the flash of spiritual power, in the rarrk background against which the flat ochres of the figures of marine animals are contrasted.  The undulations of line are particularly marked and produce a dynamic sense of the currents in water. 

Artists from central and western desert regions work in so many different ways it is hard to make generalisations.  

The NGV Exhibition Artist’s Hand: Collectors’ Eye showed many examples of one main strand – that of the Pintupi artists who have developed, over time, pared-down geometric and linear forms of expression with a limited colour palette.  Such paintings feature layered, canvas-filling circuits of solid and dotted lines that appear to shimmer and vibrate. In aesthetic terms they appear minimalist. They are nevertheless rich with meaning being drawn from the artists’ strong connection to place and cultural narratives.    

This painting by Joseph Jura Tjapaltjarri (it was not in the exhibition named above) is mesmerising.  It confuses the eye by the way the surface appears to shift in and out. The effect is produced by the contrasts among the dark and lighter linear elements, their variation in density, their irregularity of edge and the shifting depth of field created by geometric shapes.  

Another tantalising work is that by Doreen Reid Nakamarra from one of the most isolated settlements in the world – a place of flat terrain with long parallel sand dunes so well captured in this remarkable painting.  The optical effects in this work are extraordinary.  Sandhills appear to stand up on the painting’s surface.  The rhythmic repetition of fine undulating linear striations and herringbone designs with subtle shifts in tone create the illusion of 3-D. An underlying series of apparent folds, almost perpendicular to the dunes, produced by broader patterns of shifting tones add to the optical intricacy.  NGV visitors have been seen looking at the canvas from the side to check whether it is actually buckling – the optical illusion is so strong!

Other central and western desert painters are known for their bold use of colour and an unrestricted palette – sometimes compared to art of the “fauves”.  Colours are straight from the can or tube. Strong contrasts and unexpected colour combinations create after images and edge effects. The oft-stated colour rule that warm colours come forward and cool colours recede may be turned on its head.  The results are paintings that are joyful, alive and akin to music in colour.

Tommy Watson is one of the great colourists.  His works are complex, visually powerful with a profusion of colours that vibrate, gyrate and shimmer. When looked at closely for some time the clusters and networks of irregular dots on contrasting backgrounds appear to float or drop away.  For example, a section of crimson dots on black appears to lie above red dots on blue, while yellow and white dots float above.   To my eye, Tommy Watson’s paintings have a stronger sense of underlying order and deliberation than those of many other colourists. 

In this remarkable painting, Yawarr, the canvas appears to glow.  With the exception of small irregular areas of dark ground colour around the edges, the whole canvas is covered in brilliant and contrasting colours. Vibrant blue irregular  “donut shapes”  surrounded by circular lines of dots stand out from a crimson and magenta tightly dotted field.  Areas of orange infill and occasional white circles of dots visually lift the painting.  Sometimes the blue seems to float above the background. At other times individual central coloured regions appear to float likes islands in a lake of blue.  Additional complexity comes from small areas of a darker blue and, then, an additional surprise – the unexpected appearance of green in two tiny areas.   The painting is magical!

While different in every way to the bark paintings at the beginning of this article, the colourful paintings of the western and central deserts have their own forms of shimmer or brilliance.  All the paintings in this article show clearly the hand of the artist.  To my mind, all works in their aesthetics can more than match those of the well-known artists of the Op Art Movement.  The indigenous works sing – and they are far more “alive”.  

The 2004 NGV publication Colour Power by Judith Ryan with essays by others is an excellent resource.

Thank you Susanne for your knowledge and insights about art. You have added an important and fascinating dimension that is invaluable in sharing these works with visitors.

Note: There has been a correction to this post. The final image is ‘Yawarr‘ not the previously cited ‘Warlukurlangu Jukurrpa‘. Apologies for the confusion.