Makinti Napanangka (c.1922 – 2011), Pintupi woman from the Western Desert, approached painting as an act of embodied memory. Working through impaired vision, then with restored sight, and finally with an aging hand, her canvases became tangible records of touch, memory, and devotion, proving that painting is not just about sight, but sensation itself. Few artists have transformed adversity into aesthetic innovation as profoundly as Napanangka. Limited vision became tactile, her fingers and hands guiding paint across canvas in gestural tangles of desert-hued blues, purples, yellows, and oranges. Restored sight became luminous, delicate, light-filled works that elevated her to prominence among the rising stars of the Western Desert art movement. An ageing, trembling hand became kinetic energy, animated, interlaced lines that mirror the rhythmic movement of hairstring skirts swaying in ancestral ceremony. Each phase of her late-stage career, from the mid-1990s to 2010, reshaped not only her own work but also our understanding of painting's potential. Her canvases radiate remarkable vitality and tenderness, achieved through rhythm and repetition rather than formal structure. They serve as records of a body engaging with Country, of ceremonial knowledge made tangible, and of an artist who refused to let physical limitations hinder her authoritative vision.
D'Lan Contemporary, in collaboration with Wik & Kugu Art Centre, is honoured to present Archer River Country — a joyful celebration of the ancestral landscape seen through the eyes of Janet Koongotema, at the 2026 edition of Melbourne Art Fair. Born in 1938, Koongotema is recognised as the most senior Wik-Mungkan elder of the Winchanam Ceremonial Clan and the custodian of several important creation sites of totemic significance including the dilly bag, fishing net, Burdekin Duck and White Bellied Sea Eagle. Janet carries forward knowledge that is central to Winchanam Clan identity and cultural continuity. Since 2010, Koongotema has adapted her weaving skills to painting, where her deep cultural knowledge forms a vital part of her contemporary artistic practice. Using dramatic colour compositions to depict her ancestral homelands along the Archer River near Aurukun, Janet's paintings reflect deeply held knowledge of a life lived in constant relationship to the Land. She describes her Country as “a very colourful place” where waters shimmer with striking hues. Archer River Country will be Koongotema's first Melbourne exhibition, and first solo exhibition since 2011.
D'Lan Contemporary, in collaboration with Wik & Kugu Art Centre, is honoured to present Archer River Country — a joyful celebration of the ancestral landscape seen through the eyes of Janet Koongotema. Born in 1938, Koongotema is recognised as the most senior Wik-Mungkan elder of the Winchanam Ceremonial Clan and the custodian of several important creation sites of totemic significance including the dilly bag, fishing net, Burdekin Duck and White Bellied Sea Eagle. Janet carries forward knowledge that is central to Winchanam Clan identity and cultural continuity. Since 2010, Koongotema has adapted her weaving skills to painting, where her deep cultural knowledge forms a vital part of her contemporary artistic practice. Using dramatic colour compositions to depict her ancestral homelands along the Archer River near Aurukun, Janet's paintings reflect deeply held knowledge of a life lived in constant relationship to the Land. She describes her Country as “a very colourful place” where waters shimmer with striking hues. Archer River Country will be Koongotema's first Melbourne exhibition, and first solo exhibition since 2011.
D’Lan Contemporary is honoured to present a solo exhibition of paintings by the late Lawrence Mirrinya Pennington (c. 1935-2024), a revered senior painter from the remote community of Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia. Born sometime in the mid-1930’s, Lawrence spent his formative years traversing Spinifex country with his extended family group. Living beyond the reach of the settlers, pastoralists and miners that had begun to encroach upon much of remote Australia. Lawrence’s first contact with settlement life came during the early 1950’s when he and several other families approached the vicinity of the mission at Ernabella where a number of their relatives had settled over the previous two decades. After a brief time spent at the mission, life continued on Spinifex country until, Lawrence and many other Aṉangu (Aboriginal people) were forcibly removed from their country in preparation for the atomic tests at Maralinga. Alongside his Spinifex kin he was taken west to settle at Cundalee Mission. Lawrence began painting in the 1990s, and while his early works shared the formal language common to desert art, his practice quickly evolved into a strikingly singular visual vocabulary. Early collaborations with, and observances of, other painting men encouraged a reductionist approach, devoid of decoration and reliant upon design. His earlier tendency to fill the space diminished and his painted shapes no longer served as a mere framework upon which the painting could proceed, they became the painting. This remarkable collection of paintings offer a rare, compelling vision of Spinifex Country, and an opportunity to celebrate a master of contemporary desert painting.