Read the start of Denise Salvestro's article from the Spring 2010 (Vol 45 No 45) issue of Imprint...
On being introduced to the medium of printmaking, Aboriginal artists in remote communities usually show much enthusiasm for trying the variety of techniques on offer, finding parallels between these and traditional methods of creating artworks and carved artefacts. Certainly this is so with the Yolngu of Northeast Arnhem Land, where artists in communities with established art centres and facilities for on-site printing have long been successfully producing works on paper in collaboration with non-Indigenous printmakers.
When European civilisation impacted on their culture in the 1920s and 1930s the Yolngu began to use art to impart their knowledge to balanda (non Yolngu) in the hope that this would help them understand and respect Yolngu culture and connection to country. From the mid 1970s Yolngu artists adapted printmaking to the expression of their particular style of painting. Ever mindful of the constraints of traditional laws and customs, and remaining faithful to traditional iconography, the artists have successfully used print media to express their local identity and individuality and to produce commercially viable and critically acclaimed works of art. While the economic viability of prints is important to the Yolngu artists, they are conscious of the fact that their art is also a powerful political and educational tool. Works have been produced to make political statements and to educate both Indigenous and non-Indigenous about social issues that affect Yolngu, such as health and education.
There has been consistency in the presence of printmakers who took the lead in initiating workshops for Aboriginal artists, especially in remote Northern Territory communities - notably, Leon Stainer and Basil Hall. Stainer has been involved from the early 1990s, helping to establish the printmaking department at the Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University or CDU). Since then he has been running workshops for Aboriginal artists at the University as well as visiting remote communities, including Ernabella, Waringarri (Kununurra), Tiwi Islands and Ramingining. Hall arrived in 1996 to manage the Northern Territory University Print Workshop, renamed Northern Editions (NE) in 1997. Stainer is still very much involved with Aboriginal printmaking at CDU, while Basil Hall left Northern Editions in 2001 to establish the eponymous Basil Hall Editions (BHE), which has since initiated some of the most exciting projects carried out in remote communities throughout Australia.
One such community where Hall has played a significant part in facilitating printmaking is at the Buku Larrnggay Mulka art centre (BLM) at Yirrkala in Northeast Arnhem Land. Hall had established an association with Yirrkala artists from his days as director of Studio One in Canberra in the late 1980s. On relocating to Darwin in 1996 he became more directly involved in running workshops with Yirrkala artists both on-site and in Darwin, initially at the university workshops and then at the BHE studios.