Task Sheet

Australian International Academy, Kellyville

Date: Week 1, Term 3 - 2021

Year Level: 10 Subject: Visual Arts

Week 1 – Term three:11: 15- 1:00

UOW: Art &Identity

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15th July, 2021

Google Meet link - https://meet.google.com/tyq-opvs-imf

Lesson title – Aboriginal arts- Knowing and understanding

Resources required – Access to Managebac, YouTube, worksheets, power point presentation

Unit – Art &identity
Key concept – identity
Related concept – Representation, composition, interpretation, audience
Global context – identities and relationships
Factual: —what is identity?
Conceptual: How do other cultures’ influence how I think and act?
Debatable: when is process more important than product?

Task 1- design title page: Art and identity

What is aboriginal art? – PowerPoint presentation & YouTube video featuring the artworks of Rover Thomas and Clifford
Possum

Presentation Link Sameeha: https://www.canva.com/design/DAElkv3pO38/dn6-8ukMQLiaPCw9bpm_6g/view?

utm_content=DAElkv3pO38&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY91woMW7xQ
Clifford Possum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-1XUGrO9nY
Rover Thomas

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Task 2- Students are to write 10 points about each video – describe what did you see in the two videos, colours, symbols,
ideas

Clifford Possum:
1. Uses earth colours

2. Tells a story (Dreamtime stories)

3. Dot painting

4. Incorporated different

5. manipulation of three-dimensional space.

6. Uses strong figurative elements

7. To indicate specific times of the day, provide a visual image of sunlight, cloud, shadow, and earth.

8. highly descriptive background dotting

9. Geographic land depiction

10. Use of acrylic paints

Rover Thomas:
1. Use of elements of his desert upbringing.

2. Bird's-eye perspective

3. Symbolic representations with map-like layouts

4. Ochre tones taken from rock art and body designs were used to paint this piece.

5. Dreamtime story

6. traditional mythology and storytelling play

7. Painted landscape as both a physical location and spiritual site.

8. Painting events of cultural and social importance

9. First used bush gum as pigment and charcoal.

10. Uses a virtually colourless water-soluble gum from the Kurrajong tree

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 Task 3- analyse one artwork form each artist using the structure and subjective frames – use the template below to assist
you analysing artworks

Evidence of completion of work – upload task 1&2&3 on Managebac. Print task 1,2,3 and place it in Visual diary

Clifford Possum

STRUCTURAL FRAME

Key words and terms…

Medium, composition, signs, symbols, techniques, forms, direction, colour, tone, texture
Artwork 1: Two men dreaming
Focus questions for the Structural Frame:
What materials have been used?
Natural pigments on canvas board

Why were these symbols, signs selected? What do they mean?

Jakamarra and Jupurrula, two ancestral spirits that travelled great distances to shape the landscape
Before returning to Yaturluyaturlu, the men travelled to Karrku, also known as Mount Stanley, which is
home to a red ochre mine.

Describe the visual language of line, shape, colour, texture, tone, focal point, lighting, composition,
and space.
The artwork is very uses very bright coloured presented in a warm tone.The shapes are very unique.
Including patterns, figures, feet and circular patterns as well as many wavy line and straight lines
present within the artwork. The technique of dot painting gives a sad like texture to the painting.
These elements makes the artwork weem very diverse, lot of very different elements linking together.
Hinting what the Aboriginal men would usually dream about.

What style, period, or art movement does this artwork belong to? How do you know?
I don’t know.

What formal conventions can you see? For example the use of perspective, tonal modelling?
I see that the artwork is showing the dreams of two native Australian men and shows a bit of their
lifestyle.

What cultural conventions can you see? For example; landscape, portrait?
I can see that’s it’s the Australian outback landscape due to all the visual elements

How do all of these elements explain the world at the time and now?
It explains how different the lifestyle is now. It very busy compared to the simple nature of the bush. Australia is now
just mainly city and a fast paced world whereas the outback is very simple. The men would dream about things a
man in this normal day wouldn’t really dream of.

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Rover Thomas

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 SUBJECTIVE FRAME
Key Words and Terms…
Emotion, feelings, experiences, imagination, psychological experience, opinions, personal reactions,
evocative, subconscious, intentions, memories, interpretations, mood, themes  and other emotions

Focus questions for the Subjective Frame:

What do you see?
I can see a lot of empty space, a lot of colour, lining with dots. Stories being told. Harsh lining, bold colours,
squiggly lines. Lots of neutral, warm, outback/bush colours.

What do you feel? In your opinion, what is the dominant mood?

I feel reunition. The most dominant mood is of people from 2 different words meeting. From two different ends.

What is the intent of the artist?

In 1988, Thomas painted Kananganja, a reinterpretation of the Bedford Downs tragedy (Mount King). Mount King is
represented by the massive primary shape, and its shadow is cast by the long, thin portions. The little circle in the
lower left corner depicts the location where the poison victims' bodies were burned. Thomas drew the Kurirr Kurirr
Cycle's verse 15 to describe how he dreamed the Kurirr Kurirr Cycle's verse 15.

Does this match how you think audiences will react?

The meeting of two roads in Australia is an analogy for the coming together of two cultures: the red dirt track
signifies ancestral creatures and the original occupants, while the black bitumen road represents the modern
settlers.

What techniques does the artist use? Why?

He uses dot painting as well as normal brush painting to give simplicity to the artwork and not overcomplicate the
visual look and feeling of the artwork.

Do the colours and shapes used evoke any emotions?

The more darker lines in the middle give a bit of harshness along with the shape seeming like the two hand aren’t
able to meet giving a bit of sadness to the artwork.

What does the artwork remind you of? Are there any connections to my own work?

The artwork reminds me of my dreams and desires. I feel that the dreams and desires are so close yet so far, I just
can’t quite reach them.