MAGNET, DOME BOOM C.J. TURTLES (x5)

Colours of the Reef
by Colin Jones

Feature: Magnet

• Australian Indigenous Artist Licensed Design
• Fridge Magnet
• Gloss finish
• Sticks to all metal surfaces

Colours of the Reef
The turtles in the reproduction of the traditional painting “Colours of the Reef” represent the life forces of the turtle and the vivid colours of the circles symbolise the colours of the reef and ocean. Every breeding season, female turtles return to the same beach where they themselves hatched. After laying up to 100 eggs in the warm sand, the mother turtle’s work is done and she then leaves her eggs to incubate. The tiny turtles finally push up virtually in unison at night and head for the light coming from the ocean. They endure an arduous journey across the sand and about 1 in 1,000 survives and reaches the relative safety of the ocean. Aboriginals respected the mother turtles and understood their breeding cycles and would dig up the nest and only take some but never all the eggs. They would then carefully cover the nest and leave the remaining eggs to hatch in the warmth of the sand.

ARTIST INFORMATION
Colin Jones was born in 1947 in Queensland Australia, and is of Kaladoon and Nunuckle tribal descent. As a young boy, Colin learned to paint from his grandfather. Colins multi-layered dot paintings tell the stories of his ancestral lands, where the rain forest, rivers and land connect. In these depictions, there are small foot and hand prints telling the stories of Aboriginal people roaming the land.