The Aboriginal Art Concept ‘Bush Medicine’ and Why I Love It

Okay! I know it’s been a while and I know this is quite a random post, but when you see these artworks you’ll understand why I absolutely had to jump on and write here immediately.

Today I discovered an Aboriginal Artwork concept called ‘Bush Medicine’ in a beautiful little mountain village called Kuranda, Queensland. Sorry. Yes, I’m currently in Australia. Backpacking. Apologies for the lack of recap.

But anyway! Oh my goodness, no wonder they’re considered medicinal. These artworks had me HYPNOTISED. The actual process seems pretty simple, wet and dab your brush so it curves into a leaf-like curvature, be generous with your paint, create a flower like centre and then continue outwards. But nevertheless, they’re such stunning works. And imagine how much time they must take?!

So it turns out that ‘Bush Medicine’ artwork mimics the leaves of the Kurrajong, a really useful tree that has a lot of great purposes, including creating pastes to heal a variety of different skin conditions such as skin cancer. You can also make a ‘healing’ tea from it. Who knew a singular type of tree could be so precious? Apparently a lot of doctors in Australia and worldwide buy these paintings to put up in their offices because of the great medicinal connotations.

The pieces I saw were in the Doongal Aboriginal Art Centre, and the main artists who used this method here were Margaret Scobie, Gloria Ramette Petyarre and her cousin Jeannie Petyarre. Both Gloria and Jeannie are recognised as being the first to paint this beautiful technique, with Gloria in particular winning the renowned Australian ‘Wynne Prize’ in 1999. She’s actually considered to be one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal artists. Woweeeee

I love a lot of things about this style of painting, but two things especially. 1. I love that the background is always black – not only does it show how thick the layer of paint must be due to the paint’s opacity, but it just cultivates the most striking and bold display. Secondly, I REALLY love that each individual leaf is hardly ever one colour when you look super close. When looking far away, the colours stand out as separate entities to each other, when getting a bit closer, you can soooo get lost in how the colours just melt together. Urgh! I just love it.

Anyway, that was my little burst of art nerdiness for the day! It hasn’t happened to me in a while, especially since graduating university. But thanks to the Petyarre family and the Kurrajoing tree, I’ve found my Art Junkie alter ego today!