Birrikala Djini Bunarojng Bugala - Lin Onus

Lin Onus played a pivotal role in the recognition of Aboriginal art as an expression of a contemporary and dynamic living culture. Prior to his premature death at just 47 years of age he was a prominent, strident, yet non-confrontational agent in renegotiating the history of colonial and Aboriginal Australia.

Onus’s manual skills and experimental zeal coupled with an intense desire to embrace different cultures manifested itself in his avid adoption of new materials and technology, such as
fibre-glass, plastics, silicon, and humorously time saving devices such as rarrk making stamps and dotting machines. He was driven in his efforts to take Aboriginal art into the new
century. Onus wanted to challenge the myth that in embracing new technologies Indigenous peoples would lose their culture pointing out, as just one example, that the four wheel drive has allowed more ceremonial activity to be conducted than ever before. Onus was vocal not only across the diverse mediums he employed in his art, but also in his role as the chairman of the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council, a founding member of Viscopy, and an eloquent speaker enlisted by peak arts bodies to act as a spokesman at the National Press Club and other prestigious gatherings. Above all, he was an artist whose work made ‘no distinction between the political and the beautiful’.