Henrietta Fourmile, writing in 1991, argued that Aboriginal women's art had suffered neglect for three reasons:

• male bias on part of anthropologists;
  
• western cultural hierarchies that privilege painting and sculpture over the crafts; and
  
• lack of recognition for women's role in Aboriginal society.

However, the status of Aboriginal women's artists has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Women's "autonomous and complimentary" role in Aboriginal society is now generally acknowledged.

Women's ceremonial life

Aboriginal women have their own rich ceremonial life in the yaweyle or awelye ceremonies for health, well-being and fertility. The artwork of Aboriginal women is now celebrated from the paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and the printmaking of Banduk Marika to the basketry of Yvonne Koolmatrie and Tracey Moffatt's photography and filmmaking.

Women's art

The importance of women's own distinctive cultural practices is evident in a number of communities.

Women at Ernabella, with the encouragement of art advisor Winifred Hilliard, produced a range of artworks from the 1950s onwards: woolen rugs, greeting cards and batik all deploying the unique walka design derived from the light and colours of the desert environment.

Batik was also prominent at nearby Utopia, (where it formed the basis of Emily Kame Kngwarreye's rich and fluid style) and in the Tiwi Islands, taking a different historical direction in each community.

Alongside the development of these new genres, as economic circumstances changed, women artists emerged to increasing prominence.

At Yirrkala for example, Mawalan Marika and Narritjin Maymuru taught their daughters and sons to paint and today Banduk Marika and Naminapu Maymuru are leading artists.

Johnson: Gender Issues...

Recent reports reveal that a gender imbalance still exists within the art industry, however Vivien Johnson argues against the prevailing assumption that this is caused by internal cultural factors and the exclusion of women from painting. Johnson's account moves beyond earlier cartographic interpretations for Aboriginal art based on "maps of song lines drawn in the sand by the old men to instruct male initiates in preparation for the rituals of their manhood."

Instead Johnson highlights the narrative dimensions of Aboriginal women's art grounded in the sand drawings and body paintings that accompany women's ceremonial life. Thus gendered readings add an important "cognitive, emotional and sensory dimension [to] all Aboriginal art."

Hamby & Mellor: Fibre tracks

Aboriginal Australians, like Indigenous people worldwide, have always placed great value upon fibre work in both material and spiritual ways. Objects made from natural and animal fibre have figured in the spiritual, economic and cultural life of Aboriginal people as ceremonial objects, body adornment, and in the everyday life of a hunter-gatherer people.

Anthropologist Louise Hamby and Indigenous curator Doreen Mellor demonstrate the continuity of these fibre traditions across the continent and their transformation over time in response to a changed reality.

Gender, media and the market

Visit a commercial gallery or shop selling Indigenous art in your area. If there is no commercial gallery or shop available, use the Internet. Examine the work on display and the gender balance in the artists represented.

What are the media used: acrylic painting, bark painting, printmaking (ie lithographs, etchings, linocuts) and fibre (basketry, batik)?

What is the price range?

In your opinion, is there any relationship between gender, media and price?

Can you explain why the work of some artists is more highly priced than the work of other artists?