Week 9

Family and Country

by Damien and Yilpi Marks

Family and Country depicts the dry season of Damien's homeland in the Northern Territory. 

It illustrates aspects past down from generation to generation of the landscape and culture at the 

time of Damien's great-grandparents. 

This painting describes a community preparing for a ceremony. Women and children collecting bush potatoes (as seen with the red shapes at the top), and a man with his spear. With the dry season, the community would use controlled burnings to help rejuvenate and replenish the life of fruit. 

In preparation for the ceremony, women's body paint is presented as small star like symbols which are splatter across the painting. 

The warm colours help represent the dry season, cracks, dry creek beds and the heat of the day and the fires. The white creates contracts and shows the movement through the story.

Overall this card is very complex and detailed. It expresses a large community and their routine ritual leading towards a ceremony. Although I respect the story and representation, I find it hard to fully appreciate the story with its complex imagery. As the application of this story is in a gift card, i feel it wouldn't be appreciated as a whole as it would be if it was a painting. In a painting form, this story would be admired by those who truly understand each mark and its intension.