Elsewhere You Looked When Blood Stained Our Maps and Soaked the Soil

This drawing is one of an ongoing series expressive of intimate engagement and collaboration with the Arrernte of Mparntwe/Alice Springs, my home of over four decades. Here I have walked with my Arrernte brothers and sisters, participated in their ceremonies, accompanied them in some of their darkest moments, absorbed their knowledge and deep love of country, and reflected on the ongoing trauma of dispossession and the impact of colonisation. Interwoven with poetic meditations, these devotional drawings are a rapturous singing of country, an enduring act of bearing witness.
The rock formations, drawn with loving, at times obsessive attention to detail are pushed to the fore, looming and creaturely, alive with urgency. Vegetation is sparse, small trees are mostly leafless, jutting up from the rocks like skeletal fingers. Only the problematic weed, buffel grass flourishes.