Paddy Bedford, Ancestral Present

Paddy Bedford stands as one of the most influential figures to emerge from the East Kimberley’s late-20th-century artistic renaissance. A senior Gija cultural leader, Bedford carried deep knowledge of Country shaped by a lifetime spent working cattle across the stations of his homelands and participating in ceremonial life. Though he painted bodies and ceremonial objects throughout his youth, his public career as an artist began unexpectedly late, when modest experiments on found timber revealed a strikingly original visual voice. Joining the newly formed Jirrawun Arts collective in the late 1990s, Bedford rapidly became recognised for his spare, elemental compositions. Broad sweeps of ochre bisected by rhythmic lines that chart place, memory and ancestral presence with quiet authority.

Far from abstraction, his paintings map story, law and lived history, often referencing sites marked by conflict as well as spiritual continuity. Today Bedford’s work is held in major national and international collections, celebrated for its restraint, gravitas and profound connection to Gija Country.