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Kintore, Kiwirrkurra, Warakurna and the Lands

Western Desert

Songlines carried across enormous distances, painted with an authority that comes straight from ceremony.

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About this country

The Western Desert stretches across the border country of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia — Kintore, Kiwirrkurra, Warakurna, Papulankutja and the APY Lands.

Many senior artists from this country were among the last Aboriginal people to make contact with settler Australia, some as late as the 1980s. Their work carries the structure of ceremony with little concession to the outside eye: the tali (sand dunes), rockholes and travelling routes of ancestral beings, rendered with a physical rhythm that can be felt before it is read.

The painting from these communities ranges from the tight, optical linework of the Pintupi to the flooding colour fields of the APY Lands.

Available now

Art from Western Desert

No works from this region are listed at the moment

Our holdings change constantly, and much of what arrives is sold before it is photographed. Tell us what you are looking for from Western Desert and we will let you know when something suitable comes in.

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One Phoenix Arts acknowledges the Larrakia people as the Traditional Owners of the land on which our gallery stands, and pays respect to Elders past and present. We acknowledge the artists and their communities across the Northern Territory, the Kimberley and the deserts, who hold the stories in these works.