Embassy of Australia and the William King Museum

Circles in the Sand: Aboriginal Art from Central Australia in the Kluge-Ruhe Collection

This exhibition featured artworks from art centers at Papunya, Yuendumu and Balgo dating between 1971 and 2007, twenty-nine of which came from the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. Circles in the Sand followed Aboriginal artists’ use of different artistic media, beginning at Papunya in 1971. The shift towards painting on wood, masonite, and eventually canvas grew into a major art movement that spread to the neighboring communities of Yuendumu and Balgo. Many elements of this new acrylic painting style were derived from sand drawing, with icons representing features of the landscape, ancestral beings, and creation stories. Circles in the Sand highlighted the primary design elements of central Australian art, such as concentric circles, wavy lines, and animal tracks, that express a traditional body of knowledge and relationship to country that has persisted for thousands of years.

Link to the Embassy of Australia’s website here.

Link to the William King Museum’s website here.