"How many people still think that up north or in the centre is the only place for real Aboriginal art. You know when you work with it, selling it, buying it, you hear it all the time."
There can be few artists who live and work in such isolation as does Jimmy Pike. His isolation is not merely geographical, though our camp on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert is two and a half hours' drive in dry weather from Fitzroy Crossing and inaccessible in dry weather, but also social and artistic.
Painting movement at Papunya 1971-75 one of the few positive offshoots of the Government's Assimilation Policy. Senior men began to paint on boards and made murals for the school, initially showing sacred secret material, later self-censored. Paintings use complex patterning and dotting to describe formation of land by Ancestors, natural features and travel.
Original dreaming. Aboriginal people believe that the spirit ancestors watch over us today to ensure the laws are kept and that punishment is inflicted if broken. Photograph of Yuendume women dancing.