Five senior Spinifex men, Simon Hogan, Fred Grant, Ned Grant, Lawrence Pennington and Roy Underwood have collaborated on this major work depicting the ancestral beings at Mulaya. Mulaya is where the tjitji liru (snake children) reside and are part of the Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa (two men creation story) that involves a father and son Wanampi (water serpent) who reside at Pukara and are traversing the land on initiation business. When the two men arrive at Mulaya the snake children tease the son because of a slight deformity and the father decides to camp away with his son that night. That night when the father is sleeping, the son wild with rage sneaks back to Mulaya and becomes embroiled in a fight with the snake children and has eaten many by the time the father arrives and takes the son away. In this painting each man has concentrated on his particular country and its relationship with the journey to Mulaya.

Six senior Spinifex men have collaborated to create this painting that gives us a depiction of Pila Nguru - from Spinifex Country. The Men have connection to a swathe of significant sites that inter relate to one another through story, song and cultural authority. There is birthright and paternal links that govern who can depict which sites but the men know the others country and the Tjukurpa associated within it intimately. It is this intimacy, this complete knowledge of one another’s place in Country and Culture that allows the men to join in such a way. Here they give us a glimpse into a way of seeing the world, a depiction of birth and creation from an intrinsically linked posion where the creaon of country is the story and the song.

Roy Underwood takes us through the monumental sand ridges of Miramiratjara as its being guarded by a powerful Wanampi (Water Serpent) who travels through the ground appearing when necessary. Fred Grant depicts the abundance of sites, the interlaced travelling tracks that carried him to this place, to Pirapi from the beginning, wandering through Country with meaning. Ned Grant follows the paths of the wata tree roots) and takes us deep underground within the labyrinth of twists and turns, created by the first beings to surface through the Ngalta (Currajong) that holds the life affirming water for travelling through this arid landscape. Ian Rictor places Kamanti, the site representing the Two Men who made this their home on the journey of Creation. Lennard Walker takes on the journey north to his home of Kulyuru where the Minyma Tjuta created the landscape and Byron Brooks guides us to the east as we watch country associated with his childhood unfold.

This multitude of sites, of country, of fauna and flora was all created as the first beings moved though. Traversing and shaping the landscape all at once, telling the story, the moral narrative and physical reminders of their power and presence that people still live by today.

The Men are Singing the Song. (6 individual panels)

Six senior Spinifex artists move as one within a different sized and primed linen, shaping their own Country into the available area whilst aware of others doing the same nearby. The result is a majestic collaborative effort that sits together as a testament to the individual magic created. Each has depicted a portion of a much larger story, of a sweeping country with a multitude of sites that inter-connect within the Song, a landscape that echoes with characters and moral framework which live on in the daily lives of people today.

Roy Underwood moves his magic onto the canvas using the brush like a magicians’ wand, marking the Country that will become the Story, bringing the Creation into the present. Roy and his ambidextrous deft hands allow Miramiratjara to surface, painting the Two Men Creation Journey as he paints the landscape, willing the beings to appear. Miramiratjara, is an especially significant site in the heart of traditional Spinifex Country that has huge bald sand hills protruding skyward and these can be seen from a great distance away like a swell breaking in the distance. It is one of the few sites in the Great Victoria Desert that has permanent fresh water and as such was traditionally peopled on a regular basis often with associated ceremony. Miramiratjara holds the Wati Kutjara Tjukurpa or Two Men Creation Line, a powerful tragedy of greed and revenge that forms part of the moral compass that guides people on a daily basis. It is this continual presence of the Tjukurpa that transcends the daily life of Spinifex People and allows them to hold a sustaining existence with each other and the Country that surrounds.

Simon Hogan walks within the Story, allowing the significant site of Lingka to manifest upon the canvas, moving the Wanari (Mulga) tree to within reach of the precious waters that lay within. These trees signify the physical landscape that surround the Song and a symbol of the need for water by all things. Simon transcends the daily physical realm when painting the significant sites that still inhabit him and allow him to move through the landscape of the canvas.

Ned Grant takes the canvas underground through ‘Anpiri’ the taproot at the base of the Ngalta (Desert Kurrajong) always turning, twisting the markings as he follows the paths to life affirming water sites. Ned weaves the story to Palpatatjara, his place of birth and that of the Nyii Nyii Tjukurpa (Zebra Finch Creation Line) a powerful Mens story that is highly secretive. These are the paths that the first beings travelled shaping the landscape as they went, bringing the physical into the daily reality for the Spinifex People allowing them the Story to follow.

Ian Rictor sweeps the convex rock holes of his linage onto the canvas, filling the space with the landscape he knows intimately. Kamanti, Tuwan and Tjilutjipi come into being. He expands the area with traveling lines, Songlines, routes from where the significant sites were created and where the first beings still reside. These sites still wait for him, sitting quietly, whispering the Song that he walked long before today.

Lawrence Pennington touches the deepest qualities of the Tjukurpa in the unseen, the concealed, taking the broad brush to minimal resemblance of the characters that inhabited the first journey. He guides them effortlessly onto the canvas, channeling the essence of the significant sites from a time before when Lawrence walked the landscape within the Song. Here he brings forth Wati Kutjara or the Two Men, a father and son who traverse the Spinifex Country creating the landscape as they move through it and leaving the physical reminders of their power and presence.

Byron Brooks places large tracts of his country upon the canvas with marked ease, singing the song through the brush, surrounding the sites with multiple travel lines. Byron remembers the well-worn paths that he paints with the Minyma Tjuta Tjukurpa beginning for him at Pirapi and following as the story unfolds over multiple sites. He recreates the journey and the maps that live in the landscape as people traversed it.

Seven women: Dora Parker, Ivy Laidlaw, Myrtle Pennington, Ngalpingka Simms, Tracey Simms, Sophia Brown and Kanta Donnegan, have painted this Seven Sisters story, a major Western Desert Tjukurpa that traverses Spinifex Country at numerous sites. The story pertains to the creaon of the landscape and details the women’s travels as they sing inma, collect bush foods and pursue a giant python, as they are in turn pursued closely by the lustful wati Nyiru (man). Specific events in this story where the women intersect with Nyiru, form geographic and culturally important sites, many which are for women only. At Tuntunya rockhole which is Kanta Donnegan’s country she tells the story of the sisters painting their nipples getting ready for ceremony. The word for nipple is tuntun in Spinifex language. Sophia Brown painted a site called Kulyuru her grandfather’s place, where the women chase the python who forms a large hole in the rock as he escapes. A tree overlooking the canyon at Kulyuru is Nyiru, never far from the sisters. The python winds its way across the landscape of Kulyuru creating a large creek bed. At Kuru Ala in the north of Spinifex country one of the women is grabbed by Nyiru, she is later healed by her sisters in the cave. The women’s journey and sites travelled are represented by the many rockholes or roundels in this painting. Wati Nyiru is represented by his camp and spear and can be seen in numerous places across this canvas. Ivy Laidlaw has painted the women sitting in their camp, with Wati Nyiru waiting nearby, with his spear and spear thrower. Dora Parker has painted the site of Purpurnya. Ngalpingka and Tracey Simms, mother and daughter, have worked together to paint Wayiyul country close to Karilywara (Patjarr) in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands of Western Australia. It is where Ngalpingka was born and grew up living a traditional nomadic life with her family. She knows this country intimately, in both a physical and spiritual sense. The seven sisters camped at Wayiyul and Nyiru has been stalking them, camping some distance from where they stop and hiding behind his windbreak, poking his head over to take a look. The women are disturbed by his constant pursuing of them and quickly take off to camp away from him. They travel to (roundels are the sites) Karilywara, Miputjara, Tikatika, Wanarn and Yalara.

The younger women who worked on this painting continue to learn the details of this extensive story under the guidance of their senior close relatives. These women will be the bearers of this story for the following generations and express the story through painting and other contemporary art forms. The younger artists are; Tracey Simms, Dora Parker, and Sophia Brown.