West Kimberley

The Central and West Kimberley takes in Fitzroy Crossing, Balgo (Wirrimanu), Bidyadanga and the communities along the Fitzroy River.

Balgo sits where the Great Sandy Desert meets the Kimberley, and its painting is known for intense, saturated colour and thickly worked surfaces — a desert structure delivered with unusual chromatic force. River country around Fitzroy Crossing produced the celebrated Mangkaja artists, whose work moves fluidly between figuration and abstraction.

Further north lie the Wandjina traditions of the Worrorra, Ngarinyin and Wunambal peoples — ancestral rain and creation beings whose images are painted only by those with the right to do so.