June Peters / Purnululu – Series

A Gija artist raised with deep cultural guidance from Madigan and Sandy Thomas. Her ochre artworks centre Texas Downs Country, its hills, waterways and Ngarrangkarni narratives. Her relationship with this Country runs deeply through her life and her art, and the individual hills, waterways and cultural sites of the region remain among the most significant subjects in her artworks.

June was born in 1962 beneath a tree in a creek bed on Texas Downs Station (Ngarrgaroon) in the East Kimberley. Growing up among some of the East Kimberley’s most significant artists and cultural leaders, June learned about Country, Ngarrangkarni narratives and the traditions of ochre art-making from senior Gija artists including Jack Britten, Madigan Thomas and Lena Nyadbi. June lost both her mother and father at a very young age and was raised in part by the late Madigan Thomas, a senior Gija Law woman, cultural leader and significant early ochre artist, and her husband Sandy Thomas, a respected Cultural Elder.