AI impacts on Aboriginal Art Industry

Athena Nangala Granites at work on original artworks on Country in the Northern Territory. A recent work by renowned artist Felicity Nampinjinpa Robertson, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming). Both are followed by AI generated “Aboriginal” artworks using the Night Cafe platform.

As AI slips rapidly into our lives unannounced like a thief in the night, the impact across creative industries is already being felt. New technology like Chat GPT are unleashing potentially catastrophic outcomes for many artists, including the already-vulnerable Aboriginal art industry.

A fascinating article on Crikey.com.au by journalist Cameron Wilson delves into the murky world of sacred Aboriginal artworks being bastardised to create AI artworks for sale on digital platforms including Ebay, Adobe and Shutterstock. To the untrained eye, you may not notice that images from different Aboriginal language groups are coagulated into an artwork trading as produced by indigenous artists across Australia.

What perhaps is more shocking is that AI generated images of Aboriginal paintings were used to promote a panel discussion at the University of Western Australia about the Voice to Parliament campaign. In another example covered by the Crikey article an AI image of an “Aboriginal” woman was used to promote the government-funded Mining and Skills Alliance to “raise the profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women”.

AI can present exciting opportunities for artists as they embrace new technology helping express their creative vision. However, the Central Desert artists we represent are drawing on their Dreamtime stories and their connection to Country, which is sacred on levels the uninitiated will never understand. But it speaks to us and you cannot replace the emotion you feel when coming across an Aboriginal artwork that crosses the divide and reaches into your soul.

Users generating Aboriginal AI fakes are failing to even acknowledge the real Aboriginal artists whose talent it is targeting. Indeed our Bay Gallery Home website and Blogs are scoured for content and regurgitated elsewhere with no heed for our copyright. What happens when AI starts devouring AI generated content? I’m not across the tech behind AI generated content but it would be interesting to know how AI protects itself from…AI. If you know please leave a comment below.

To read the Crikey.com.au article in full please click on the link below.

If you want to see to real Aboriginal artwork by Aboriginal artists creating artwork on their Country in the Central Australian desert visit the Bay Gallery Home stand D8 at Affordable Art UK Battersea in March. Click on link for your VIP tickets.

Invitation to Battersea Affordable Art Fair 18-22 October 2023

In October Bay Gallery Home will have our largest ever stand at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair in London with many large form paintings, curated in response to demand. It is due to your support the gallery has been able to grow to the point where we can exhibit these impactful, important paintings in an established market like London.

Among the new are works are paintings by Helen Nungarrayi Reed, Athena Nangala Granites and Chantelle Nampinjinpa Robertson, some of which you can see below. We also have works by Ada Pula Beasley, who recently had a sell-out show in Australia. Don’t miss the chance to own an artwork by the amazing Ada.

We also have four paintings by Steven Jupurrurla Nelson, whose career is reaching stellar heights with his selection for Salon de Refuses, part of the presitigous 2023 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Telstra NATSIAA).

This year we also have bigger on-stand storage and a van on site so if you can’t find something you’re after on the stand, just ask us. We are likely to have something perfect stowed away for you. Or get in touch beforehand with paintings you’d like to see and we’ll have them ready.

For your VIP tickets click on the link below or scan the QR code. Bay Gallery Home looks forward to seeing you at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair! Feel free to pass the link on to friends/family/colleagues you also want to come.

Contact alexandra@baygalleryhome.com or call 07776 157 066 with painting requests.

Ancient medicines of Aboriginal Australia

Australian Aboriginal bush medicine is believed to have played a major part in the success of living off the continent’s landscape for more than 60,000 years. Much of the flora and fauna found on the huge landmass is unique. Across Australia, Aboriginal people developed bush medicine and used it to treat headaches, colds, skin infections and rashes, prevent pregnancy and cure many other ailments. Australia’s isolation meant it wasn’t subject to the devastating illnesses that stalked Europe.

Bush medicine is a testament to the profound interconnectedness of the indigenous communities to the ancient land they call home. The traditional healers also use spiritual realignment and smoking ceremonies using  Eremophila longifolia (commonly known as the Berrigan emu bush) producing a smoke with significant antimicrobial effects when heated. Traditionally the ceremonies were to mark the birth of a baby, initiation and circumcision of boys. Deeply rooted in their rich cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs, this holistic healing practice thrived amidst the harsh and arid landscape.

Intergenerational sharing of knowledge is essential for bush medicinal practice being maintained. Traditionally this was passed on through stories and ceremonies, as well as practice. Since what Indigenous groups more commonly term the 'Invasion’ of Australia, it’s become increasingly important to document the knowledge due to the fractured communities, loss of access to sacred sites and the assault by mining companies on Aboriginal lands.

One of the ways of maintaining botanical knowledge is through art (in an earlier blog, we covered the Batik art movement which features important bush medicine and bush tucker stories). Another is Aboriginal-led initiatives like the social enterprise Bush Balms run from Purple House in Alice Springs. Purple House is an Aboriginal-owned and run charity specialising in dialysis for Aboriginals from remote desert communities. Bush medicines were brought to patients by mothers and grandmothers more than 20 years ago, with many being created by elders over the fire at the house. This practice was the genesis for Bush Balm.

When my mother was working as a nurse in Utopia (Tanami Desert 300km north east of Alice Springs) a dog bit her. My mother said a very old Aboriginal woman emerged from nowhere and slapped a gooey paste on her injured leg and muttered advice to keep it there. Outnursing the nurse, the balm healed the bite would without an infection or scarring developing.

Collaboration with bodies like the Imperial Bio Science Review, Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and Curtain University aids the safe development and distribution of bush medicine-based products, while also providing business opportunities through the sale of bush medicine products, tourism and horticulture.

Little wonder mega-pharmaceutical companies now circle indigenous communities and their bush knowledge.

Now, more than ever, it feels important that Aboriginal communities across Australia protect their botanical knowledge and connection to their land.

Aboriginal bush medicines include eucalyptus leaves, Kakadu plum, witchetty grubs, desert mushrooms, and snake vine.

Ancient Aboriginal Trade Routes - with Dr John Gardiner

Greenstone axe examples Image courtesy of Museums Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au

Our friend, Dr John Gardiner, recently sent us his theory on Aboriginal trade.  It’s a fascinating read which led me to look more into the Aboriginal trade routes throughout Australia and with the Malyasian Maccassans who in turn traded with the Chinese and along the Silk Road.

Many of my clients have read The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin so are familiar with the complexity, breadth and depth of Aboriginal trade including a greenstone axe-producing quarry in at Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry (known as Wil-im-ee Moor-ring) outside Melbourne. (Further reading suggestion can be found below).

———————-

By Dr John Gardiner

Recently I heard about how the native guava (bolwarra) is being decimated by myrtle rust, introduced somehow from overseas.  The bolwarra has gone from thriving in the Eastern rainforests to being critically endangered in only a few years.  Such a wonderful plant too.

This got me thinking about all the other Indigenous food plants we have that are really similar to food plants in Asia and elsewhere. Finger limes, native gooseberries, native grapes, native pomegranates among many others. Experts think that many of these plants were introduced to Australia thousands of years before colonisation and have subsequently adapted to, or been bred for, local conditions.

It could be argued that the plants were already present in Australia before the supercontinent Gondwana broke up, like the family Proteaceae: in Australia waratahs and South African proteas. Or that the plants came by wind, water, or on the wings of birds, bats or insects.

Let’s look at the Kimberley baobabs. Baobabs are only found native in the Kimberley and Madagascar/Africa/Arabia. The African Creation Story of how the baobab came to be upside-down is almost exactly the same as the Aboriginal Dreamtime Story and there are linguistic similarities between African and Aboriginal baobab names. Moreover baobab nuts have high vitamin C and long shelf-life so early Arabian seafarers would provision them to stave off scurvy.

It seems entirely plausible that the Kimberley baobab, and through extension other culturally important plants, were brought to Australia by people purposefully or by accident.

There are other tantalising clues to Australia’s rich historical past. An Ancient Greek coin found in the Wessel Islands off the Northern Territory that may be from pre-fifteenth-century Tanzania, a fifteenth-century bronze Buddha found in Shark Bay. Then there is the introduction of the dingo between 4000 and 8000 years ago or maybe even earlier.

Trade never happens in one direction.  So whoever introduced these food plants I mentioned must have gained something in return. There is a papyrus from Alexandria dating to the early first-century C.E. that shows a cassowary. Cassowaries are only found in Australia and the islands immediately to its north including New Guinea. There must have been a trade route by land or sea at this time.

Indigenous Australia has made some amazing technical advances over the millennia. The returning boomerang, circular breathing, ground edge stone tools. Boomerangs have been found in Florida and even in Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb. It has been suggested that various civilisations developed them independently.

Boomerangs were not introduced to Australia: it is known they were invented south of Sydney.  The earliest known record of boomerangs in Australia is around 20000 years, similar to the age of the a 23000 year old Polish boomerang made from a mammoth tusk.

I would not be surprised if the knowledge of how to make boomerangs made its way from Australia, across Eurasia, in return for trade in the opposite direction.  Australian Indigenous Culture may have been connected to, and contributed to, the rest of the world for a long time.

Two old boomerangs, left: an early stone carved hunting boomerang, Western Australia, right : an early highly curved returning boomerang, made from hardwood, Southeast Australia, early 20th century. Provenance: Lord Alistair McAlpine (1942-2014); a British businessman, politician and author who was an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he was a lifetime collector in many fields including Aboriginal Art. He was an early collector of the American painter mark Rothko and could easily see the sophisticated aesthetics of Aboriginal Art and artefacts. Image and text courtesy of www.carters.com.au

Christmas Gift Ideas from our Aboriginal Desert Artists: design with origin

Delight your friends and family with Christmas gifts you can’t get anywhere else in the UK. 

Bay Gallery Home is brimming with Aboriginal art and design we can’t wait to share with you. 

Just yesterday we received the heavenly scented candles encased in fine bone china bowls so you can keep them as a decorative object, an hor d’oeuvres bowl or somewhere to toss your Christmas jewellery into at the end of a long night. 

We also have new teapot & mug designs including more whimsical designs from West Australian artists.

In bath and body we’ve added body bars in gorgeously illustrated boxes and a new Murdie Nampijinpa Morris lip balm.

More beautiful paintings are on the way including some from budding young artists who are displaying the trappings of great talent. 

Please visit the website to see the new additions. There’s plenty of time for us to post out presents on your behalf if your unable to visit us in Tetbury.

Tomorrow evening Friday 10th December we hope that those of you who can make it to our thank you drinks. Please do a lateral flow test beforehand if you haven’t received both Covid jabs and your booster if required.

Stay well. We will get through this. x

Black Lives Matter

Geraldine Napangardi Granites, Snake Vine Dreaming

It hardly bares thinking Black Lives Matter even has to be stated.

In Australia our indigenous population have endured, and continue to endure widespread racism, discrimination, segregation and brutality. In November last year a young Walpiri man, Kumanjayi Walker, was shot in Yuendumu for breaches of his suspended sentence. He subsequently died while in police custody with a Northern Territory police officer later being charged with his murder. Kumanjayi is from a community represented through our art gallery.

Shocking, avoidable and in no way justifiable.

Reconciliation Week in Australian ends tomorrow so let’s hope people reflect on the events in America and at home by moving forward in a positive manner whereby it’s accepted all have equal human rights.

In the UK we see young black men ripping into each other with knives and increasingly using guns to inflict revenge in their postcode wars. So much was taken away from our young, particularly our black youths, during austerity. If Black Lives Matter(ed) to those in power community centres would reopen and youth programmes reinstated. Police funding could go towards supporting the young rather than installing multiple cameras on every street corner.

Black Lives Matter. Stop the Killing.

Telescope Style features Bay Gallery Home

Telescope Style seeks, curates and sells elegant, destination-inspired products for home & lifestyle. Items with a direct, unmistakable connection to a country, region, landscape or city. They source from well-travelled, design-led creatives, with a focus on quality, originality and timelessness. Bay Gallery Home is thrilled to be featured by Telescope Style on their latest blog.

Please follow the link below to the complete article.

For the full article go to https://www.telescopestyle.com/bay-gallery-home/