I’m sorry, but I’m over this cultural appropriation business. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and we should be living in an age (and in a country) that is doing better at addressing the legacies of the past and the pressing inequalities of the present. You don’t get to play around with a historically marginalised people’s culture for the sake of creating ‘edgy’ art. This isn’t a ‘dialogue’ to me. It would be nice if all this creative energy and talent was put into ethical art instead.

There are glimpses of originality but reworking ancient and meaningful motifs of another culture into mass produced commercial art is just shameful. The pseudo bark paintings are particularly disturbing.
Hipster support of this as ‘super cool’ is just as crass. I am not a blind supporter of all that is politically correct (in fact have had heated discussions in the past with those who are) but this is just shallow and facile with a bit of lame theory to try and justify it.

‘The appropriation of indigenous art and design is an ethically complex discussion. I am more than aware that within Australia this form of appropriation is historically and politically loaded, and is intrinsically tied to the destructive legacy of European settlement. And it is for these reasons, these conflicting agendas that I think it’s important to engage in the dialogue.’

This is not a ‘dialogue’: it’s a monologue of your own making. You have just linked yourself intrinsically to the destructive legacy of European settlement you claim to be talking about.

Use your own imagination Lucas… I’d like to think you have one. You could actually be a good artist.