Emily Kame Kngwarreye Neutral Colors

For thousands of years, Aborigines have created art for many purposes including spiritual, ritual, and pleasure. Traditional Aboriginal art includes painting or engraving on tree bark, the ground, or rocks (called petroglyphs), sculpture of hard sand or wood, body painting, and delicate basketry. Many traditional paintings featured patterns of lines, waves, zigzags and dots.

Traditional artists including Emily Kame Kngwarreye have used neutral colors for their paintings.

Here is an example of the body painting that was traditionally done for special dances and ceremonies.

Emily’s painting entitled, “Awelye,” shows “body markings” painted in many neutral colors