Figure-Ground and Occlusion Depiction in Early Australian Aboriginal
                    Bark Paintings

Gillam, Barbara
                            J.

doi:10.1162/LEON_a_01423

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June 01 2017

Figure-Ground and Occlusion Depiction in Early Australian Aboriginal Bark Paintings

Barbara J. Gillam

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Email: [email protected].

BARBARA GILLAM was born in Sydney, Australia, and educated at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University. She moved to New York, becoming a research associate at Columbia University and later professor of vision sciences at SUNY College of Optometry. Gillam returned to Australia in 1987 to take up the Chair of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, where she is still a professor. Awards she has received include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a UNSW Scientia Professorship, a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio) and the 2010 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the Australian Psychological Society. She has been on many grant-awarding bodies in the United States and Australia and is a consulting editor for the journal Perception.

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Barbara J. Gillam (educator)

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Email: [email protected].

BARBARA GILLAM was born in Sydney, Australia, and educated at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University. She moved to New York, becoming a research associate at Columbia University and later professor of vision sciences at SUNY College of Optometry. Gillam returned to Australia in 1987 to take up the Chair of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, where she is still a professor. Awards she has received include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a UNSW Scientia Professorship, a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio) and the 2010 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the Australian Psychological Society. She has been on many grant-awarding bodies in the United States and Australia and is a consulting editor for the journal Perception.

Received: July 28 2015

Online ISSN: 1530-9282

Print ISSN: 0024-094X

2017

Leonardo (2017) 50 (3): 255–267.

https://doi.org/10.1162/LEON_a_01423

ABSTRACT

Aboriginal painting has been largely treated as conceptual rather than perceptual and its visual impact little examined. In this article the author shows the perceptual skill and innovation demonstrated by Aboriginal bark painters in depicting figure-ground and occlusion. This has heuristic value for studying occlusion perception and adds visual meaning to the conceptual meaning of the paintings.

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Figure-Ground and Occlusion Depiction in Early Australian Aboriginal Bark Paintings

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