As I write, French-Australian artist/jeweller Olivier of Mo Resin is in Central Australia, learning more about Aboriginal culture, art and design with the Warlukurlangu Artists’ Aboriginal Corporation. His Aboriginal art design resin jewellery is a totally new concept. You’ll find an eclectic range on Taste for Travel’s resin jewellery shop. I’ve seen and written about indigenous painted gumnut jewellery, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen Aboriginal art in this form of adornment.
In English, this traditional Aboriginal design, featured in my shop, is called Bush Onion Dreaming. Created in silver leaf encased in durable resin on a double strand of fine stainless steel with a secure clasp, the Janmarda Jukurrpa Resin Necklace is Mo Resin’s appreciation of Australia’s indigenous artists and their richly varied desert cultures which date back many, many thousands of years.
The Janmarda Jukurrpa Resin Necklace (top picture, and below) is from paintings by artist Sarah Napurrurla White, and 10% of the sale will go to the Aboriginal artists’ collective in Central Australia, where she works and lives. This is top quality, handmade, strictly limited edition resin jewellery. The necklace comes in large and small sizes. Mo Resin’s Olivier stamps each piece with his initials.
The Janmarda Jukurrpa Resin Cuff: Silver Leaf is 17.8cm in circumference with a 3cm gap. You can adjust the size for your wrist by dipping it in boiling water for a few seconds, and carefully opening or closing it a little more. This standard size will fit most wrists, anyway, although my bones are not quite as slender as some, and I will dip it in the water, to make it fit.
Australia’s indigenous art is far more complex than meets the eye. It has an imagined ariel perspective, or bird’s eye view. Central Desert Aboriginal art depicts the “dreaming” of their ancestors.
Aboriginal people use the term “dreaming” to refer to concepts about spirituality, mythology and their beliefs in creation of life. A state of dreaming is said to be a trance-like state between sleeping and waking. Spirituality is expressed by ceremony, ritual or paintings.
An artist will most often paint journeys, actions, sacred objects, designs and sites associated with ancestors. The Dreaming series relates to Aboriginal artists who use iconography and abstract imagery to depict a sacred ceremony or the site related to that “dreaming”. Concentric circles usually represent a group of people or site or place, a campsite or a water/rockhole.
It’s a real privilege to be able to bring you indigenous art captured in a beautiful, affordable, wearable form. Some pieces have already been sold to customers in New Zealand and Greece. I’m thrilled that appreciation is stretching so far!
