Brilliant blue: The blue rock art of Awunbarna, Northern Territory, Australia

Abstract

Within the extensively painted rockshelters of Awunbarna (Mt Borradaile) in western Arnhem Land, appears a cluster of paintings that are conspicuous amongst the traditional white, red, yellow, and black figures. Brilliant blue pigment has, for generations, captured the imagination of local Aboriginal community members and visitors, including rock art researchers. This rock art was created using laundry whiteners (such as Reckitt’s Blue) during a period of intense change in the region brought about by European arrival. This paper explores the largest documented cluster of laundry blue rock paintings in northern Australia. We investigate the subject matter, distribution, and manner of use at Awunbarna alongside its broader cultural and artistic context. We find that laundry blue rock art emerges as part of a flurry of innovative rock art being created in this region at the turn of the nineteenth–twentieth century and continuing, in rare instances, until the 1960s. We argue that blue paintings and the Painted Hand Figures represent two relatively short-lived, innovative experimental phases within an art-making tradition with Awunbarna as the epicentre for this rock art movement. Likewise, we suggest a very small number of artists may be responsible for the blue rock art of Awunbarna indicating its use may have been restricted to artists of a certain status.