Sun and Shadow: Art of the Spinifex People traces how painting became both political instrument and cultural declaration for a community whose presence on their own land had to be made legible to the Australian legal system.
About This Book
When the Spinifex people returned to their ancestral homelands in the Great Victoria Desert after the devastation of mid-twentieth century Maralinga atomic testing, they needed a way to make their story visible. Over the past 25 years, they developed a distinctive mode of communal painting — born directly from the demands of Native Title evidence — that is unlike anything else in the history of Aboriginal art. Sun and Shadow is the first major publication to position this practice where it belongs: at the centre of Australian art history. With reproductions of significant paintings and essays by specialists and collaborators, the book illuminates a visual tradition shaped by both deep time and urgent political necessity.
Key Features
- 280 pages of full-colour reproductions of significant Spinifex paintings alongside scholarly and personal essays
- Edited by John Carty and Luke Scholes
- Published by Upswell, ISBN 9780645536867
What You'll Discover
- How Spinifex painting emerged from Native Title proceedings, giving a unique political origin to a visual art tradition
- The communal structures that distinguish Spinifex art-making from individually authored practices elsewhere in Aboriginal art history
- The impact of the Maralinga atomic tests on the Spinifex people's connection to country, and how that rupture shaped their subsequent cultural production
- How the Great Victoria Desert homeland shapes the visual language of Spinifex painting — its forms, its scale, its sense of collective identity
About the Author
John Carty is one of the editors of this volume, working alongside Luke Scholes. The book also features essays by experts and friends of the artists closely connected to the Spinifex community and their practice. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 280
- Dimensions: 262 x 245 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780645536867
- Publisher: Upswell
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Curators, art historians, and collectors with a serious interest in Aboriginal Australian art, as well as anyone working at the intersection of Indigenous cultural sovereignty, land rights, and visual practice.