CARLENE WEST was born in southern Spinifex Country at Tjitji and, as a teenager, moved to the mission of Cundeelee with her parents. Like many Spinifex people, her family were forced off their Country due to the British nuclear testing at Maralinga. Throughout her painting career, Carlene has always conceptually returned to the place of her birth and given form to the site of Tjitji. In early works, Carlene represented Tjitji with stylistic forms that were aligned with those of the Western Desert region and were characteristic of the intensity of Spinifex art and iconography. However, in 2012 her artistic maturity, adaptability and ambition were impacted by the early stages of Alzheimer’s, with Carlene embracing the paintbrush as a primary and gestural means of speaking to Country. Her canvases sing with bold voids – the vast lake and its ethereal surroundings, echoing with the sorrowful story of the women. Tjitji is an area of unusual geographic features, a huge salt lake surrounded by giant unvegetated sandhills. In Spinifex Law, it is a highly sacred site of the ancestor women who were pursued and killed by a Quoll Man. The sad narrative tells of how the stranger called to the two women while they were walking across the lake with a child. The Quoll Man told the women to hand over the child, and as they ran to escape, the man threw many spears, killing all three. The women and the spears are still there today as rocky outcrops protruding from the ground and can be seen from a great distance away. Carlene West’s inaugural sellout show at Raft Artspace in September 2014 represented a critical breakthrough for the artist and her community. It was the first solo show for any artist of the Spinifex Art Project, which was established as part of the Native Title documentation process in 1997.

VANESSA MERLINO