Barbara Weir

Aboriginal Australian artist Barbara Weir’s paintings of the sacred and ceremonial are created using an intricate dot layering technique, deeply influenced by her mentor, the prominent painter Emily Kngwarreye. Mixing the traditional ochres of Central Australia with acrylics, she favors long, overlapping brushstrokes atop her gridded dots, as well as the thick application of paint. Weir’s abstractions evoke the movement of water and grass, aerial views of ceremonial grounds, and body painting. “I paint my mother's country, the land where we live, find and prepare our food,” she says. “I paint the same old stories I heard as a child, only my personal style is different.” Raised away from her family due to the forced assimilation policies of the Australian government, Weir uses her paintings to chart the rediscovery of her language, history, and the Dreamtime stories of her tribe.