Balinji (1997) and other works

Overview

Queenie McKenzie (1915–1998) depicted the Aboriginal experience through bold autobiographical canvases that offer insight into life on the remote cattle stations of the East Kimberley region in early twentieth-century Australia. This posthumous selection of McKenzie’s paintings portrays the rich cultural traditions of her community and land. In the style of other Gija artists, McKenzie imbued each canvas with hand-collected and crushed natural pigments in a luscious array of earth tones, which she punctuated with pink and purple ochres. These images unearth the troubled history of the Gija people’s post-British settlement, shedding light on the social issues that her community navigated. Works such as Balinji (1997) and Limestone Hills Near Texas Downs (1991) meld memory, cultural knowledge and the natural world into a sacred living landscape