Violet Valley

Year: 2011

Size: 61 x 92cm
earth ochre on canvas 

Shirley Purdie is a senior Gija artist from the East Kimberley region of Western Australia.  Using ochres collected on her own country, her work draws on traditional stories passed down to her and she depicts sites associated with her ancestral country.

‘Violet Valley (Baula-Wah) is Mum and Dad’s community just near my Community, Norton Bore.   A tributary of the Ord runs all year round through this country.  I have painted the good grazing land to the south, the black-soil country with the mountains to the north, and the river with a large black rock which is the top of a mountain you can always see above the water’.