Untitled - Boxer Milner Tjampitjin

Milner began painting in the late 1980s. Born south-west of Billiluna near Sturt Creek, he was one of a small number of people from the transition zone between desert and river country in Tjaru land. Here, the landscape and vegetation shift from flat, featureless rolling Spinifex plains to floodplains with vast river channels and permanent waterholes.

Milner’s paintings differ from those with a conventional Balgo aesthetic. They explore the annual cycles of flood and drought that create swamps rich with birdlife, through which Purkitji (Sturt Creek) flows. Muyun is the name of a prominent sand dune, south of Milner’s home, depicted as the horizontal line through the centre of the painting. The track used by people travelling through this country is shown as the central vertical line. The variety of hook shapes represent the different drainage and creek lines across the country, while the background colours indicate the various types of soil and vegetation found in the area.

This was the country where an ancestral man called Waltjiri once threw his boomerang for fun. As it travelled across the sky, the boomerang left behind the wirtaki—the rainbows that form during the wet season.