Welcome to Central Australian Aboriginal Art
The creators of this vibrant art and craft live right across the vast, arid, sparsely populated centre of the continent, which spans Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
Aboriginal art can range from a small hand-made basket or wood carving to a valuable painting by an artist with an international reputation.
Either way Aboriginal traditional law or culture is the foundation for all the art.
About our art
"The art means to carry on our stories, to know it belongs to my family and it belongs to my father and grandfather, so that everyone can know about us, so we can carry on, so our kids can carry on forever, even when we’re gone. So non-Indigenous people can know about us in the future, how we fought to keep our culture strong for the sake of our children’s future.
The art is about who you belong to, about what country you belong to, it’s about the only way you can know and others will know too. Our art has got to be protected because it belongs to individual people and their families. It is their belonging, it belongs to their group so it must be treated right way. The art movement should be really strong the way it’s going now and we should be keeping it stronger. We got a lot of strong people in our communities. Those artists are strong about their art."
Valerie Napaljarri Martin
Chairperson of Desart 2001 -2004