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Aboriginal dot painting is very mellow. Painters on the verge of coma mellow. Fifteen students sit round a table diligently working on their paintings, while Ben Engelbertink, student pastor and course organiser, glides around the room offering reassuring words of advice. The shepard and his flock.

Despite the calm and obedient atmosphere, the students freely and abstractedly expressing themselves. One student, Patty Carrion, discusses her nearly completed work. “This is me,” she says, pointing to some yellow and orange dots. “The background represents university life. The brightly-coloured swirls in the foreground are the people who are important to me.” The future is also in her painting: “This is my family and future husband.” Dots, like all the rest.

For Westerners, aboriginal art’s formal symbols are, politely stated, confused. For instance, one symbol can mean rain, ants or eggs. And circles represent such diverse things as ground, fire, water well, tree or heaven. Thankfully, not much attention is given to this aspect of the art. “We aren’t ourselves aborigines,” says Ben Engelbertink, rather self-evidently. “We’re just inspired by them and therefore don’t follow the rules exactly. Instead, we combine the student%s own culture with that of the aborigines.”

Engelbertink spent years living among the Australian aboriginals and recently exhibited art works he found there. The exhibition was called ‘Bridging the Time.’ Students visited the exhibition, liked what they saw, and asked Engelbertink to teach them aboriginal painting techniques. Thus, the dot-painting course was born.

Dot painting requires lots of patience. For every dot on the canvas, the painting stick must be dipped into the paint. One painting consists of thousands of dots. That’s a lot of dipping. “But that’s what makes it so peaceful here,” says one student. True, but more impatient people would find the dot,dot,dot of aboriginal painting an extremely tedious task. For enthusiasts, however , the result is beauty, Engelbertink says.

.kop Connecting dots the aboriginal way

The International Student Chaiplancy teaches “Dot painting, the aboriginal way”. But those who immediately think of students painting like Tasmanian Devils or Jackson Pollock, wildly splattering paint on canvas with artistic aplomb, have got it all wrong.

Aboriginal dot painting is very mellow. Painters on the verge of coma mellow. Fifteen students sit round a table diligently working on their paintings, while Ben Engelbertink, student pastor and course organiser, glides around the room offering reassuring words of advice. The shepard and his flock.

Despite the calm and obedient atmosphere, the students freely and abstractedly expressing themselves. One student, Patty Carrion, discusses her nearly completed work. “This is me,” she says, pointing to some yellow and orange dots. “The background represents university life. The brightly-coloured swirls in the foreground are the people who are important to me.” The future is also in her painting: “This is my family and future husband.” Dots, like all the rest.

For Westerners, aboriginal art’s formal symbols are, politely stated, confused. For instance, one symbol can mean rain, ants or eggs. And circles represent such diverse things as ground, fire, water well, tree or heaven. Thankfully, not much attention is given to this aspect of the art. “We aren’t ourselves aborigines,” says Ben Engelbertink, rather self-evidently. “We’re just inspired by them and therefore don’t follow the rules exactly. Instead, we combine the student%s own culture with that of the aborigines.”

Engelbertink spent years living among the Australian aboriginals and recently exhibited art works he found there. The exhibition was called ‘Bridging the Time.’ Students visited the exhibition, liked what they saw, and asked Engelbertink to teach them aboriginal painting techniques. Thus, the dot-painting course was born.

Dot painting requires lots of patience. For every dot on the canvas, the painting stick must be dipped into the paint. One painting consists of thousands of dots. That’s a lot of dipping. “But that’s what makes it so peaceful here,” says one student. True, but more impatient people would find the dot,dot,dot of aboriginal painting an extremely tedious task. For enthusiasts, however , the result is beauty, Engelbertink says.