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Originally practiced by Australian aboriginals on the interior part of a tree, just below a stripped bark, specifically on the Eucalyptus tress in Northern Australia. Bark paintings were used for ceremonial purposes and instructional purposes.
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Earliest European record of Aboriginal bark painting was by the french artist N M Petit, who travelled with N T Baudin to Tasmania from 1800 - 1804, and recorded the drawings found on a bark shelter over a grave.
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This painting appears to depict the bust of a fantastic creature with the crested head of a bird and neck and shoulders of a human. Represents a being from the Dreaming (primordial creation period) when the ancestors of birds and animals walked the earth in human, or humanlike, forms.
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In subsequent years demand for the paintings grew and mission shops became their primary outlet. The federal government established a centralized merketing company in 1971
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At Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney
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Bark paintings today belong to collectors and public arts institutions.
