bark painting depicting a coiled snake

unrecorded Australian Aboriginal artist, artist

bark painting depicting a coiled snake, 1960s

Where object was made: Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

Material/technique: bark; pigment

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 81 x 39.5 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 31 7/8 x 15 9/16 in

Credit line: Gift of James A. Sleeper

Accession number: 2007.2754

Not on display

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Collection Cards: Animals

The abstract animals shown on this bark painting reflect traditional Australian Aboriginal dream stories. Bark paintings are made for communal ceremonies and for sharing stories across generations. Here, iguana-like lizards, probably goanna lizards, surround a black, coiled snake. Native Australian peoples commonly include goanna in bark paintings because these lizards are immune to certain types of usually deadly snake venom.

What kinds of stories have you been told that include animals?

What types of animals are in these stories?

Spencer Museum of Art Highlights

For Australian aboriginal people, “dreamtime” or “the dreaming” is objective reality—truth opposed to the subjective reality experienced in daily life. Although the translation is imperfect, the dreaming interweaves art, truth, and the ancestors. Events that occur in the dreaming do not, as one might expect, occur during sleep. Instead, events in the dreaming take place simultaneously in the past, present, and future. This bark painting likely accesses events that are occurring in the dreaming, allowing initiates of different levels to understand and discover messages built into the imagery, seen by all, yet understood by few.

Google Art Project