Few areas in Australia, if any, have an artistic history reaching further back than the Western Kimberley. Here, the artistic tradition stems from rock painting, mostly of the deeply important Wandjina Deity, which still forms the basis of contemporary imagery, now painted mostly on bark and canvas. Some Wandjina cave paintings date as far back as 40,000 years.

There are few things more deeply rooted in this continent. The artists still use the very marrow of their land – natural earth pigments (ochres) – dug from the soil to relate their Country on canvas.

In the East Kimberley however, the artistic practice finds its roots more recently, formed around the founders of the Gija art movement, including Rover Thomas, Paddy Jaminji and Hector Jandany. Queenie McKenzie, under the urging of Rover Thomas, was the first female Kimberley artist to paint and exhibit her own works.

Developed most famously by Rover Thomas, the language of landscape is unique to this area, with Country viewed neither from the birds eye perspective prominent in Central and Western Desert art, nor from the standing viewpoint employed by European landscape painters. These paintings can be restrained, using few colours to depict vast swathes of land.

Yet artists often populate the landscape, as did Queenie McKenzie and Hector Jandany, both of whom populated their canvases with a mix of traditional Gija and Christian iconography. Many of Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji’s figurative works are built around the important Kril Kril ceremony. Many of these works, now housed in major collections, still bear the handprints from their ceremonial use.