The Story Behind The Artwork:

In the Dreamtime, Ancestral Beings wandered through the desert, teaching law, language and ceremony to Aborigines living at isolated camps, and creating sacred sites at various places of significance which they encountered on their journeys. These ancestors were originally humans, but they could change their shape at will into birds, animals, reptiles or other natural phenomena such as rocks, hills or trees should danger threaten, or when they felt it was time for them to die. In this way their spirits would live on forever. At some time in their travels a group of these Ancestral Beings changed into emus, and the footprints they left in the sand were called the ’emu dreaming tracks’. Tracks are very important to all of the tribes living in the desert, indicating as they do the different routes travelled by their ancestors, and in sacred ceremonies novitiates must learn the correct details of their ancestors’ tracks. All of their descendants paint their bodies with the emu design and mimic the events, which happened in the Dreamtime. Until recently this passing on of religious knowledge was only possible by song and dance cycles and by drawing tracks and other designs in the sand. Now this can also be depicted by painting on canvas.
A group of these Ancestral Beings became emus, and the footprints they left in the sand were called the emu dreaming tracks. Their descendants paint their bodies with the emu design in sacred ceremonies and teach the participants about the deeds of their ancestor. A group of these Ancestral Beings became emus, and the footprints they left in the sand were called the emu dreaming tracks.
Their descendants paint their bodies with the emu design in sacred ceremonies and teach the participants about the seeds of their ancestor. The “Bush Fire Dreaming Myth’ relates to the Ancestral Being who later turned into a blue tongue lizard. He had two sons who disobeyed him all the time, and in a fit of rage he tried to kill them with spears and boomerangs, without success. So, he set fire to dry grass around their camp, and a huge fire spread through the surrounding bushes. His sons turned into emus and ran away, and their father turned into a blue tongue lizard.