3 June 2019
My Grade 9s and 10s looked at one of the Dreamtime stories well-known among Australian aboriginal cultures where the immense Rainbow Serpent, the deity who lives in waterholes and is in command of water, came up from the ground and created the ridges, mountains, and gorges of the earth.
To depict this deity using visual conventions now synonymous with Aboriginal art, students produced dot painting studies of the Rainbow Serpent. We learned that dot painting originated as a means of sacred preservation nearly 50 years ago when Aboriginal artists from Papunya eliminated the sacred objects from their paintings and abstracted their designs with dots to disguise their sacred meanings to others.
Students then planned designs depicting the Rainbow Serpent to wrap around sanded tree branches. Working in small teams, they executed their designs depicting the creation of the earth by the Rainbow Serpent. These pieces are on display for the first time at our Art Exhibition.
