The Painted Painted Door showcases contemporary Aboriginal Art from Australia and an eclectic selection of art objects from remote locations and unique visionary minds.

With over 35 years experience in the arts, owner and curator Virginia May invites you to browse this site, stop by the gallery, ask questions and join her in a fascinating exploration of ancient wisdom and exuberant artistic expression.

Virginia’s passion and interest in the stunning and original talent of the Aboriginal artists are grounded in her respect for their 40,000 year old culture and sacred wisdom of a sustainable lifestyle. The spiritual significance of the Dreaming symbols, the importance of the ritual and the embedded nature of identity, land, art and the social consciousness of the Aboriginal artists are represented in a variety of styles and mediums.

Since the 1990’s, Australian Aboriginal art has become a hot commodity in Australia and Europe, with recent auction prices topping over $1,000,000 for a single painting.

We are committed to representing high-quality original and certified authentic art that delights and inspires both mind and soul.

Virginia is available to show and speak about contemporary Aboriginal art. For more information, please contact her via email or telephone.

Gallery Information

The Painted Door is named in honor of the Yuendumu Door, which were painted in 1983. Five Aboriginal artists living in the remote Yuendumu community in Northern Territory, australia, painted thirty school doors with Dreaming designs. For thousands of years prior to the introduction of modern acrylic materials in 1971, the Warlpiri people traced their Dreaming symbols onto compacted desert sand and painted their bodies with earth pigments in ritual ceremonies. The Painted door is dedicated to bringing the art and history of the indigenous desert artists to a western audience.

In 1971, Geoffery Bardon introduced modern acrylic materials to the remote desert communities in Central australia. “Their art was like their campfires in the Papunya glade – a kind of incandescence – which, in 1971-72 became a great artistic and spiritual conflagration among the desert tribes. It was an expression of a humiliated and repressed race suddenly told that they could seem to speak to their own feelings in their own way”.

During the early 1980’s, much of the traditional country of Warlpiri people was only just becoming accessible to them again through the land rights process. By painting the doors, the artists were expressing not only their link to that country, but also their willingness to resume responsibility for those places. The painted Doors were intended to remind the Yuendumu schoolchildren of a web of sacred sites and ancestral obligations, extending across the country.

The Painted Door

Gallery reception

Nicole Worden plays at reception