PROVENANCE
Spinifex Arts Project, WA Cat No. C938
Private Collection, Vic
Art Leven [formerly Cooee Art], Gadigal (Sydney, NSW)
Tjaduwa (Angelina) was born in 1954 and was in her early 30s when she moved with her 5-year-old son to live amongst others near the Ilkurlka rockhole in 1987. Until that time she had been one of a small extended family group located near Wayara, to the north. This painting shows the country running east/west in a band through the northern section of Spinifex country where she was born.
The Spinifex Arts Project was initiated in 1997 by the traditional owners of a vast area in the Great Victoria Desert, in order to document their ownership of country. This led to a successful land claim in a hallmark High Court decision, during which their paintings were used as evidence for the first time in Australian legal history. This stunning victory returned over 55,000 square miles of country, an area larger than the state of Tasmania to the Spinifex people. They subsequently moved out of the former mission stations where they had been resettled and re-established communities on their own land once more.
