Spirit in Land

For the Aboriginals of Australia, bark painting has long been part of a communications concept where people gather for ceremonies, revelation and rites of passage. Bark is the surface plane of the deep volume of ancestral knowledge outsiders can glimpse but never fully understand. Yet as art and design and with artists' new visual metaphors, the art has a tremendous power. This ancient form made modern blends sacred geometry and cosmic ideas with the concrete and is being avidly collected in the international fine art market. (National Gallery of Victoria)