Wilkinkarra - Mitjili Gibson Napanangka

Wilkinkarra depicts the vast salt lake and surrounding Country known as Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), a place of deep ancestral and cultural significance in the Western Desert of Western Australia. The site is embedded within Jukurrpa (Dreaming), the living system of law and knowledge that explains the creation of the landscape and governs relationships between people, place and ceremony.

Viewed from an aerial perspective, the painting maps the expansive lake bed and the surrounding Country through rhythmic patterning and repeated forms. The surface evokes the scale and openness of Wilkinkarra, while also suggesting the presence of water beneath the salt crust, the memory of seasonal rains and the ancestral forces that continue to animate the land.