About this artwork

Ned Grant intertwines himself within the landscape, unable to separate. He is a manifestation of the enormity of place that is Spinifex Land. With all of its labyrinthine religion within the physical, the flora, the fauna, the manta (ground). He moves under it, through it, above it, encompassing all. Tjukurpa is everywhere, it is sung, it is danced by firelight and it resides in and drives Ned Grant to paint. Here he depicts the Ngalta (Desert Kurrajong) in all its spiritual incarnation and the embodiment of his religion, at the significant site of Palpatatjara. This is Ned’s birth site that holds the Nyii Nyii Tjukurpa (Zebra Finch Creation Line).This is the embodiment of Ned Grant, his totem, his spirit incarnate. It is the Nyii Nyii Men who head south to the coast to save the world from being inundated with the rising sea water. These characters that Ned depicts are creation beings, the ones who came before. They who shaped the immediate landscape as they moved through it. It is them who interwove the moral compass into song and dance that still guides Spinifex People today.