William Benton Museum of Art explores how Australia's aboriginal art ties religion to land

UCONN TODAY
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Detail from Ancestral Woman Dreaming 1990, acrylic on canvas, by Colin Tjapanangka Dixon.

CONNECTICUT---"Dotted Dialogues: Contemporary Indigenous Art from Central Australia” comprises acrylic paintings and sculpture highlighted by colorful dotted patterns based on the iconography of the Aboriginal culture. While art has often been inspired by religion in Western civilization, the art of Aboriginal culture inspired by religion is also linked to specific land. “The religious dimension is about identity,” Dussart says. “Religion is tethered to the land, and you are tethered to both. Unlike Christianity, it cannot be exported. This cannot be owned by anybody else than those people who inherit the rights to those particular stories on those specific sites.” [link]

William Benton Museum of Art: “Dotted Dialogues: Contemporary Indigenous Art from Central Australia” (Ends October 11, 2015); 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, CT; (860) 486-4520; benton.uconn.edu