Oceanic Art Society

Promoting the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.

All published stories from the OAS Journal

Diverse Studies of Individual Oceanic Art Objects

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Oceanic art can be studied from a number of angles. This art can be approached from an anthropological or ethnographic aspect and from the perspective of art history or visual culture. This edition features studies of two individual sculptured objects from the Pacific that are approached from different research disciplines. Clémentine Débrosse has undertaken some […]

Travels of the Lily: from Lake Sentani to the National Gallery

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by Crispin Howarth Main image caption: Le Lys as currently displayed in the exhibition ‘Emotional Bodies’ next to works by artists including Miro, Epstein and Modigliani. Image courtesy National Gallery of Australia. One object that has been almost always on permanent display since its acquisition by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 1974 is the […]

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Solomon Islands carved coconut used in the practice of teeth blackening

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Clémentine Débrosse In 1568, Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira was the first European to visit the Archipelago now known as the Solomon Islands. At the time, Mendaña y Neira was looking for the island of Ophir on which King Solomon’s treasure was supposed to be – a story from which originates the naming of the […]

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Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections

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2021, 320 pages, Edited by Rebecca J. Conway, Sydney University Press Reviewed by Lindy Allen and Louise Hamby Djalkiri-Yolŋu art, collaborations and collections is an elegantly designed book produced to coincide with the exhibition Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations in the University of Sydney’s new Chau Chak Wing Museum that opened in November 2020. It […]

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Creatures: Ochred, Pokered, Carved & Twined

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Main image caption: Yibiyung Roma Winar, Noongar Language, Mountain Devil, c.1998. Perth, Western Australia. Emu Egg, 9.5 x 15 x 8.5 cm. Berndt Museum of Anthropology Collection [1998/0058] Presented by the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery, Perth, Western Australia. Exhibition continues until 5 June 2021. Review by Margaret Cassidy Any visit to Perth […]

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Harry Beran | Tributes received by the OAS

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Main image caption: Dr Harry Beran interviews residents of Egum Islet in Milne Bay in October 2017. Photograph: Luke Wong, ABC. Reproduced with permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Scholar, author and collector specializing in the art of the Massim area of Eastern New Guinea, Harry Beran died in Cambridge, England on 26 February 2021. He […]

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War Art and Ritual: Visit to Bill Evans’s Shield Collection

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Reviewed by Bill Rathmell Whenever I go to an art gallery or museum show, I buy the catalogue (or I don’t) on the basis of the “wow” factor of the display. I usually also choose an object that I would like to acquire and display in my home (if I had the chance). In April, […]

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Ambassadors and embassies in the new Chau Chak Wing Museum

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by Matt Poll Image: Djon Mundine OAM. The easiest way I could describe the Ambassadors exhibition is that I am using the protocols of an acknowledgement of country as a framework for engaging with both the collection objects and the people who generously gave their time to work with me throughout this new exhibition’s development at the […]

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An Important Addition to the Sculptures Known to be from the Kiwai area

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by David Ferguson This article describes a remarkable and previously undocumented female ancestral sculpture carved in the round in a fully conceived naturalistic style (Fig.1) which appears most closely related to the art style of Kiwai people living on the larger islands of the lower Fly River Delta and considered an important addition to the […]

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