Bark painting

What it is

Bark painting means painting with ochre on the inner surface of a strip of bark taken from a tree. The sheet is thin, flat and slightly uneven, and artists treat it much as a canvas. In the past, painted bark belonged to everyday and ceremonial life: shelters were decorated, and bark served for coffins, belts and baskets. Today most bark paintings are made to be shown or sold. The practice continues in Arnhem Land, in other parts of the Top End, and in the Kimberley.

Origins and history

Ochre painting on dried bark is an old practice. A painted shelter over a grave in Tasmania, seen about 1800 by the French artist Nicolas-Martin Petit, is the earliest European record; painted shelters were later reported in Victoria and New South Wales. The oldest surviving paintings date from the 19th century, and one bark etching of a kangaroo hunt, collected near Boort in Victoria, is now in the British Museum. The modern market form began in 1912, when Baldwin Spencer commissioned works from Yolngu artists at Gunbalanya. From the late 1920s and into the 1930s, missionaries at Milingimbi and Yirrkala encouraged painting for sale, to fund the missions and to teach white Australians about Yolngu culture.

Designs and meaning

Many paintings rest on sacred designs: abstract patterns, clan marks and cross-hatching, called rarrk, that can tell a viewer which clan and moiety the painter belongs to. Some images are plainly figurative, such as an animal or a person. Others are symbols whose sense changes with context; a circle may stand for a water hole, a campsite, a mat or a fire. Yolngu knowledge is divided. An uninitiated person may paint only outside stories, the kind told to a child, while inside stories are restricted. A painter may hold the right to paint a story and still not be allowed to tell it.

Regions and styles

The styles differ from place to place. In the Kimberley of Western Australia, painters show the Wandjina, creator-beings linked to wet season storms, as large faces with rayed headdresses. Around Port Keats, also called Wadeye, figurative images are combined with geometric patterns of a kind seen in desert art. Tiwi artists on Bathurst and Melville Islands favour colourful crosshatched and dotted designs without figures, and paint the same designs on bark baskets, ironwood carvings and objects for mortuary ceremonies. Work from Groote Eylandt sets figures against a black background and often shows the prau boats of Makassan trepangers.

Today and change

Bark painting is now largely made for sale and exhibition, though some artists still paint traditional designs. Demand grew during the 1960s, much of it met through mission shops, and from 1973 the Aboriginal Arts Board gave communities money to set up art centres and employ arts advisers. Maningrida, Ramingining and Katherine became centres for marketing. In 1963, four bark documents decorated with local fish and animals were presented to the Australian Parliament. These Yirrkala bark petitions were the first recognition of Indigenous Australians in Australian law, and they asserted that Yolngu people owned land the government had opened to mining.

How Bark painting is kept

The painters are Aboriginal artists: Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land, Kunwinjku artists, and painters from the Kimberley, the Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt. A work starts with stringybark, cut in the wet season free of knots, dried over a fire and pressed flat. The painter covers the sheet with a ground of ochre, adds a border if wanted, divides it into blocks for separate scenes, then sets down figures, geometric symbols and clan designs, finishing with fine cross-hatching. Traditionally these works served instruction and ceremony; today most are made for art centres, exhibitions and buyers, and many early makers are unnamed.

When and where

Bark painting has no fixed day. It is a continuing practice rather than a date in the year. Painted shelters belonged to the wet season, when people stayed in them for long periods and the stories told there were illustrated. Bark is still best cut at that season, when sap rises in the tree.

It belongs to northern Australia. Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory is its main home, and the Kimberley, the Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt have their own styles. Early pieces went far: a bark etching of a kangaroo hunt collected in Victoria is held in the British Museum, and another early painting is in the Museum of Victoria.

What Bark painting means

Bark paintings carry meaning that is layered, and often restricted. Designs can name a clan and its moiety, and images may describe the journeys of creation ancestors across the land, the same paths recorded in songs and songlines. Some patterns are sacred, and an outsider may see only lines and dots where a knowledgeable viewer sees a story. Painters hold rights over stories: a person may be allowed to paint a design but not to tell its story, which is why the art form is hard for outsiders to read.

Questions people ask about Bark painting

See also

Smoking ceremonyAn Aboriginal Australian ritual of burning native plants to cleanse, heal and welcomeBarkclothCloth beaten from tree bark across Africa, Asia and the PacificGood FridayA solemn Christian holy day commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.Mother's DayA worldwide annual celebration dedicated to mothers, maternal bonds and family care

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Bark painting on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.