Favourite piece of Contemporary Aboriginal Art

                                           
                    Title-                       Fruit bats   - 1991
                        
                     Artist-                    Lin  Onus     
                                                   Australia
                                                   Dec 1948--24 Oct 1996
             
                Language Group       Yorta Yorta ,Sourthern Riverine regio

Lin Onus was born  only child of bill Onus  ,a Yorta Yorta man from Aboriginal Community of Cuummeragunja in Victoria and a Scottish mother ,Marry McLintock Kelly. He died prematurely in Melbourne on October 24 ,1996 at the age of 47  and known as a pioneer of the Aboriginal art movement in urban Australia .Moreover, he struggled for indigenous rights .He exhibited 80 exhibition in Australian and international   venues.He was the recipient of many awards and appointments of note .Further ,he was appointed as a member of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council in 1986 and founding member and Director of Viscopy in 1995. 

When i was standing in the basement of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney ,Australia,studying the contemporary  Aboriginal Art i was fascinated with this art work.In his painting ,he interposes 99 fiberglass Arnhem Land -inspired fruit bats ,striped with rarrk(crosshatching ) ,are suspected on a common backyard Aussie Clothes line .He painted in native motive with a Western human construction in order to blend traditional aboriginal heritage with elements of a modern lifestyle.There was littered below were the bats dropping  on small discs of flower design ,referencing the flying fox dreaming to which Onus was permitted to access . In other word ,it is a cleaver way to illustrate the role fruit bats in pollinating and dispersing seeds from native plants . Eventually, this piece combines traditional indigenous culture with the suburban Australian lifestyle. 

He humorously attacks the suburban sensibility of the clean and neat back yard,contrasting the idea of clean washing bat dropping ,while forcefully bringing nature into this controlled environment.It signifies a contrast between an aboriginal engagement with nature and Anglo -Celtic determination to control or exploit it .The work is humorous but there is an undercurrent of anger in the sculpture.