11. (TDB 12) Soakage in Sandhills, Eubena Nampitjin, 1998, 18" x 14 inches

This is an unusual composition depicting desert sandhills, a soakage, and an encampment protected from the winds by a windbreak. The composition combined with Eubena’s color choices, evocative of the late afternoon light you see raking the rock formations and sandhills around Balgo, appearing to set them on fire, really makes it come alive. There’s an almost biblical quality to the desert out there, and this painting captures it.

Eubena has been the most sought after living painter at Balgo over the last ten years, and I can think of a few good reasons why. One is the aura of light which suffuses her paintings, her palate of pinks and oranges and yellows and reds are evocative of the sun-struck deep desert country she roamed as a young woman. There is also a real painterly quality to how she applies her pigments, the smeary amalgam of several colors at once, as seen in the yellow-red-orange passages, giving the painting a real sense of depth and surface texture.