Episode 43:  Canvases that manifest an art tradition going back tens of thousands of years. Brooke talks with Henry Skerritt, the curator of No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting, which will be at the Cornell University Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, New York until August 14, 2016.  Skerritt explains how the paintings in this exhibition reflect a genre that has traditionally been ceremonial and impermanent.  Although the artists that are featured in No Boundaries have created works that are hung in museums and private collections all over the world, the art is more about the process than the product. All nine showcased artists paint in full awareness that each viewer’s experience with a work of art will be unique from that of the artist.

Henry Skerritt, in addition to being a curator, is also an art historian and songwriter, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.  He originally hails from Perth in Western Australia and his knowledge of and passion for Aboriginal Australian art provide insight into a genre that is in many ways different from other world art traditions.

David O. Brown/Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

 

David O. Brown/Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

David O. Brown/Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

David O. Brown/Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

 

Featured Image: David O. Brown/Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University