Mr Patterns
In the 1970s in Australia's Western Desert, a teacher named Geoff Bardon helped start one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century. Working with the Aboriginal community at Papunya, he encouraged the people to paint their traditional dot designs using Western materials. In defiance of white authorities, Bardon also encouraged the artists to value their work commercially as well as spiritually, believing that by selling paintings the people could become independent of welfare as well as bring Indigenous art to the attention of the wider community. This is his story.