ABORIGINAL ART ANALYSIS

           Androgyny is the name of one in many beautiful paintings by the famous Ojibwa artist, Norval Morrisseau. Created in 1983, the artwork is 366cm x 610cm in size. Like all of his other works, he painted using mostly acrylic for this one too. Androgyny is filled with natural aspects resulting to a very busy and compact effect. There is a hill right on the bottom center with a hole inside filled with fish swimming to the left. While, the hill itself has a lot of animals that are connected with thin lines and a human lying against the tunnel. A snake's tail is seen half wrapped around the human’s head. However the snake’s head was faced to the center of the painting, poking halfway out of the hill.

On top of the hill, there are three humans on each side of the painting walking to the middle. Following the humans, there are ducks, and bird type creatures. Surrounding the animals there are colourful butterflies and flowers, mostly pink, red, blue and orange to create a busier feel to the artwork. A hole appears in the middle center, which is right on top of the bottom tunnel. In the center a big eagle with its wings out flying, is painted there. The eagle is made up with blue and red colours, which contrast with the yellow background and once again the lines, are very squiggly but smooth. Humans stood underneath the eagle and were painted brown with red circles floating in the air, specifically in the eagle’s hole. The painting overall caught my eye because of the bright contrast and unique choice of colours. 

The very first thing that drew my attention when looking at the picture was of course the eagle in the center. All of the animals, humans, butterflies, flowers and etc. were headed to the center where the eagle was. Lines and shapes were almost as if it was directly pointing your eyes to the image, making it clear to look in the middle where all of the others were heading. Not only did the lines and shapes guide the eyes, this artist made the rest of the picture busy while he left the middle a lot less busy to pull the eye to the middle. Using a brighter yellow for the background of the eagle also helped with the guide, I'm sure that most of the people who had seen this art would have looked at the eagle first and I must say the artist did a great job projecting people to the main character of the painting. 

Looking at this art, I see it as people, animals, plants and basically everything on earth is bowing down to the ruler or creator. They are shown to be very focused on the eagle, paying close attention while the big bird is in the air spreading its wings majestically stating that it is in a higher ranking than the others. This is most likely a representation of life, the world’s ruler that connects everyone and everything together. The artist went with a very natural way of presenting the art adding more effect to what I think the meaning is behind this piece of painting. Since I had done some research about the eagle and aboriginal people, the eagle represented love and is known to be the closest to communicate with the creator because eagles can fly up the highest. I think the artist is trying to get the audience to interpret the painting this way. However this is just my way of seeing the art, many others have different perspective like this artwork may mean something else, with a whole different meaning to it. 

At first glance I would describe this artwork as a busy piece of art, but taking a closer look I think the painting gives off a happy, positive and united feeling. The artwork overall is very detailed and there are many hidden messages making it something inspirational. I really like inspiring or any art with a deep meaning behind it. It gives off something even more special when there's a hidden important lesson in the artwork, which this painting has. All in all, I feel really attracted to the united and feeling as if everything is together as one in the painting.