Oceanic Art Society

Promoting the understanding and appreciation of Oceanic art.

All published stories from the OAS Journal

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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Introducing CASOAR

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by the Members of CASOAR In the Summer of 2017, a group of friends studying at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris who specialised in the Arts and Anthropology of Oceania came together and created CASOAR. The acronym stands for “Cabinet Atypique de la Société des Océanophiles Amateurs de Rocambolesque”, and is also the French word […]

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Evarne Coote

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by Eric Coote On 5 January 2021 we lost Evarne Coote, a long time friend of the OAS and the world of tribal art collectors. Evarne spent her life serving people one way or another – firstly, her family of three children and seven grandchildren but also as a government officer in Papua New Guinea […]

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The Stranger Artist:

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Life at the edge of Kimberley painting  2020, 278 pages, Quentin Sprague, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne.  Reviewed by Margaret Cassidy The rise of the Aboriginal art industry in the 1980s and 1990s is full of characters, myths and legends. For art lovers living in the coastal cities of Australia or around the world, great indigenous […]

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