Sometimes creation is a serendipitous act. Where the inspiration to create motivates and the subject and the process of construction are surrounded with random choices. Bundjalung Dreaming was like that. Very beautiful and a pleasure to appear before me.
During that act of creation, the beauty of the images struck me. The colours so vivid, so intense and the images presenting the miracle in the instant of creation. Each of these images being one-off prints never to be able to be recreated, celebrate the journey of an inland mob into the region of the Bundjalung mob, who would allow others to come and spend a few weeks on the coast when it became dry inland and food had became scarce as they had abundant food there.
In these images you see the colours of the figures radiating auras as they pass through the country. Initially dull and becoming more vivid with the excitement of their destination, ending with a race to the surf … the memory of a beautiful tropical flower, the raw intense colour of dancers intermingling at a corroboree, celebrating and ecstatic in the dance. A display of individual dancers and the brighter auras of the group as they return home.
Inspiration and creation are often found to be intimidating … what am I going to paint/draw/create Often this stops people from creation, the uncertainty, the vulnerability of indecision. Perhaps this is the best time to create. Release the worry about result and the fear, take the journey, experience the walk, view the destination and enjoy the knowledge it brings …
Go on. Be brave.
JEMIMA WHITFORD
I am a fusional and contemporary artist, frequently taking traditional symbols and placing these into a modern contemporary style.
