"The Eagle and the Dingo"
Oil on Board
91x121cm
Signed Lower Right, Dated 1980, Titled Lower Left, Story verso
Prov: Private Collection Adelaide
$8,000-12,000
Illustrated: Echoes of the Dreamtime by Melva Jean Roberts page 71
The Eagle and the Dingo illustrates a traditional Tiwi Dreaming narrative from Melville Island that explores the sacred laws governing kinship, respect and social order. Like many Aboriginal creation stories, it explains the origins of familiar animals while conveying deeper cultural teachings that have been passed from generation to generation.
The story tells of a woman who broke an important kinship law by looking upon her brother when she had been forbidden to do so. The consequences of this transgression were profound, and both were transformed into animals, the woman becoming the first dingo and her brother the eagle. Thereafter, the eagle watched from the skies while the dingo roamed the earth below, their enduring relationship serving as a reminder of the spiritual laws that shaped traditional Aboriginal society. The narrative is both a creation story and a moral lesson, reinforcing the importance of observing the customs that maintained harmony within the community.
Ainslie Roberts approached these traditional narratives with a highly distinctive visual language that sought to capture their symbolic and timeless character rather than recounting a single episode. Through stylised forms, carefully balanced compositions and decorative patterning, he evokes the spiritual landscape of the Dreaming, allowing the mythology to unfold through imagery that is both elegant and contemplative. In The Eagle and the Dingo, Roberts presents not merely the origins of two iconic Australian animals, but a visual expression of the enduring connection between ancestral beings, the natural world and Aboriginal law.
