Australian country is respected and revered as a host walks the reader through iridescent landscapes ranging from mountains to plains and coral reef. He carries a coolamon (a wooden bowl used in smoking ceremonies) and, alongside figures shown in a stylised horizontal strip across each double page, acknowledges the Ancestors and people of each area. The reader is welcome but must be symbolically cleansed as each precious place is entered.
Intricate brightly coloured dot-patterns anchored in curved sinuous shapes and lines highlight the ‘soft edges of crusted salt pans that create drawings on the land’ and the ‘twisted trees and sandy soil of the bushland scrub’. Suburban homes and cities are framed inside straight lines. Some space is left for the eye to rest. Poetic, sometimes alliterative writing personifies place.
Bronwyn Bancroft is a Bundjalung woman whose exceptional art is also exhibited internationally. Her love of Australia is manifested and shared here.
In her book, ‘The Art in Country : a Treasury for Children’ (Little Hare, 2020) Bronwyn Bancroft compiles four of her earlier published books: ‘Colours of Australia’; ‘Patterns of Australia’; ‘Shapes of Australia’; and ‘Why I Love Australia’. The compilation includes additional double-page spreads which encourage the viewer to look closer at the Australian environment and to find patterns in the sky, bush, night time, desert, wildflowers, river, wetlands, rainforest, ocean and reef. Here are myriad details that offer a rich and rewarding exposure to visual literacy and art techniques while showcasing the Australia environment.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
