Colorful Aboriginal paintings of ancestral designs and sacred symbols strongly appeal to contemporary aesthetic tastes and are avidly sought by and marketed to western collectors. From a western standpoint, Aboriginal paintings bear much the same aesthetic appeal as other forms of contemporary art.
Many Aboriginal paintings resemble abstract expressionist, minimalist, primitive, or op art works.
This resemblance to familiar western art forms, however, is purely superficial. Aboriginal paintings are manifestations of ancestral designs dating back to the earliest of Aboriginal times, some 40,000 years ago. It is only in recent decades, starting in the early 1970s, that western canvases and paints were introduced to the artists of the outback. In the many centuries before then, Aboriginal artists had practiced their sacred traditions by working in such readily available materials as stone, bark, wood, and the earth itself. To western viewers, the lively canvases of Aboriginal artists may seem innately attractive, wildly creative, and even abstract.