AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART - PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

More than 40,000 years ago, the first human settlers began to
arrive in Australia.

Nomadic hunter gatherers, these forefathers of today’s indigenous aboriginal people began developing their rich spiritual culture known as the Dreaming. The Dreaming, or ritual knowledge, was acquired by subsequent generations by following songlines or ‘singing'. Singing included performing at corroborees, rock, bark and ceremonial painting, and story telling.

In 1788, the British First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. Finding no fresh water they moved on to Port Jackson, settled Sydney and established the New South Wales Penal Colony. In this unforgiving and strange land, the convicts and their equally unforgiving guards met the local aborigines.  With limited success they tried to come to terms with the very different aboriginal culture. Their descendants continue today.

The first of my family arrived in Australia in 1793 on the sailing ship Bellona. With four other families, they were Australia's first free settlers.   As pioneers, my family began farming to help feed the starving new colony. They prospered, and later, after gold was discovered, were involved in mining and other commerce. As pioneers, they faced and endured all the natural hazards , floods and bush fires, colonial governments and bush rangers, and other deadly creatures.
 

My family lived alongside, fed, and at times fought with, but always respected the aborigines, their survival skills and 'local' knowledge. Despite this close contact, they probably never understood the aborigines any better than other pioneers did. As a child, I too was raised by my family to respect aborigines and their ability to endure and survive in a new and often hostile environment. I was also given the opportunity to appreciate traditional aboriginal art, mostly bark paintings and wood carvings, and later contemporary aboriginal art.  This appreciation of aboriginal art led to the establishment of  Walkabout Fine Art Gallery.
 

Much of Australia suffers a harsh climate with uncertain rainfall. When waterholes dried up, game became scarce, or because of some influence of the Dreaming, the original settlers reverted to their nomadic ways and simply moved on, following their song. The new settlers called this ’going walkabout.’

The Walkabout Fine Art Gallery, located in the San Francisco Bay Area is also a nomad. Walkabout will host short term gallery openings of contemporary Australian aboriginal art in cities throughout North America.

Our mission is simply to supply quality paintings by Australian aborigines to the market at affordable prices and bring this exciting new contemporary art to the whole of North America