I've been doing a bit of research into aboriginal body painting as another form of investigating into identity, the paint acts as a representation into who they are. Whilst our society seems to judge one another's identity on our physical appearance, the aboriginals body painting is a representation of so much more. The decoration is a definition of their family role and place within the tribe, as I've found. The body is a temple to the culture, traditions and responsibilities held upon them, a complete contrast to how we consider our own bodies. I found this really interesting, as they are almost treating the body as a work of art. It saddens me that our society spends so much of its time criticising and judging peoples bodies in such a negative manner whilst cultures like these are proud of who they are regardless of what others may think.

I intend to some more research into this as perhaps including cultural differences in my artwork could be interesting. In order to do this I will need to look at the meaning of the different symbols adorned on the body and also the colour symbolism. It could be nice to incorporate flowers that are perhaps associated with the aboriginal tribes (if any.) The aboriginals are so much more appreciative of nature as they don't have the technologies that we have. This would explain however why we feel so differently about our bodies, as we are subjected to the social and public media that has influenced our self judgement whilst they are not.

The next step is perhaps to look more into the aboriginal culture but perhaps look into others such as American Indians or other African tribes and even consider looking more into our own.