Madigan Thomas / Baloowa (Violet Valley) (WAC075-09)

c.1927-2011

Madigan Jowoodjil Thomas, whose skin name was Nyawoorroo, was a senior Gija Law and culture woman and one of the first-generation East Kimberley ochre artists whose work helped establish the distinctive painting movement that emerged from Warmun.

Madigan was born at Baloowa, also known as Violet Valley, approximately 42 kilometres south-west of Warmun in the East Kimberley. As a young girl she worked in the gardens, cared for goats and carried out domestic duties around the station. In her teens she moved with her family to nearby Mabel Downs Station, where her father and brothers worked as stockmen. Madigan later joined the men mustering cattle, repairing fences and carrying out bore runs.

Away from station work, Madigan spent considerable time in the bush with senior family members and elders, learning Gija Law, Ngarranggarni stories and the knowledge of Country that would later become central to her art. She carried an extensive understanding of plants, animals, important places and family histories, as well as memories of the profound social changes experienced by Gija people throughout her lifetime.

During the 1970s, Madigan, her husband Sandy Thomas and their family moved to Wyndham, where Madigan worked as a domestic while Sandy worked for the local shire. The family later returned to Turkey Creek, now Warmun Community. Madigan became a respected community elder and was deeply involved in maintaining and teaching Gija culture and Law to younger generations.

Madigan began painting in the mid-1980s, during the formative years of the East Kimberley ochre painting movement. Before Warmun Art Centre was established, paintings from Warmun were produced and sold through Waringarri Arts in Kununurra and Narrangunny Art Traders. Madigan painted alongside artists including Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Paddy Jaminji and Hector Jandany, and developed a distinctive style of her own.

In 1998, during her term as CEO of Warmun Community, Madigan’s daughter Ethel McLennon played a central role in establishing Warmun Art Centre under community control and in partnership with the senior Gija artists and elders who had driven the painting movement. Ethel served as Warmun Community CEO from 1997 to 2000, is a qualified primary school teacher, holds a degree in Business and is the Executor of the Madigan Thomas Estate. In 2025, she was recognised as Aboriginal Elder of the Year at the East Kimberley Aboriginal Achievement Awards.

Working primarily in natural ochres and pigments, Madigan developed a highly distinctive visual language. Her paintings are characterised by broad fields of Kimberley ochre, strong silhouetted landforms and fine dotted outlines that trace hills, tracks, water places and other features of Country.

Her work carried detailed cultural, historical and personal knowledge. She painted Ngarranggarni stories, women’s Law and ceremony, bush foods, animals, fishing and camping places, important hills and travelling routes, as well as events from more recent Gija history.

Violet Valley and the wider Mabel Downs area remained particularly important within Madigan’s work. She painted its hills, rocky Country, springs, ceremonial sites and Ngarranggarni, as well as Country associated with her husband Sandy and their extended family. Her paintings also recorded family life and practical knowledge of Country, moving naturally between ancestral stories, everyday experience and historical memory.

Madigan also used painting to preserve difficult events from Gija history, including the Bedford Downs massacre, alongside memories of station life and the profound changes experienced by Gija people following European settlement. In this way, her work became an important visual record of Country, culture and family history.

In 1995 Madigan expanded her practice into printmaking in collaboration with master printmaker Theo Tremblay. Her prints continued many of the same themes found in her paintings, including animals, birds, Ngarranggarni and Country.

Madigan’s daughter, senior Gija artist Shirley Purdie, has continued this strong artistic and cultural tradition. Shirley began painting her Country in the early 1990s, inspired by senior artists including her mother, and has spoken about the importance of paintings as a way for younger generations to learn stories, Country and language.

Madigan received significant recognition during her lifetime. In 1994 she was selected as a finalist in the National Aboriginal Art Award in Darwin, now known as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. Her work was subsequently included in numerous important exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally.

Her legacy continues through both her family and her art. In 2023, works from the Madigan Thomas Estate were included in Nyoorn-nyoorn boorroorn daam bandarran (Country to canvas) at Olsen Gallery in Sydney, an exhibition bringing together four generations of women from Madigan’s family. In 2026, Newstead Art presented Madigan & Peter Thomas, bringing together works from Madigan’s estate with a new body of paintings by Peter Goloou Thomas, who was raised and taught by Madigan and Sandy.

Today, Madigan is remembered as an important senior Gija artist, Law woman and cultural teacher whose work forms part of the foundation of the East Kimberley ochre painting tradition. Through her paintings and prints, and through the generations of her family who continue her work in art, culture and community leadership, Madigan’s knowledge and legacy continue to be carried forward.

SELECTED AWARDS
• 1994 – Finalist, 11th National Aboriginal Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
• 2026 – Madigan & Peter Thomas, Newstead Art, Sydney, NSW
• 2023 – Nyoorn-nyoorn boorroorn daam bandarran (Country to canvas), Olsen Gallery, Sydney, NSW
• 2011 – (Re)-Currents of Warrambany, Gecko Gallery, Broome, WA
• 2010 – Warmun: Our Earth Our Story, Art Images Gallery, Adelaide, SA
• 2010 – Kimberley Aboriginal Artists, Cross Cultural Art Exchange, Darwin, NT
• 2010 – Ochres of the Kimberley, Tunbridge Gallery, Margaret River, WA
• 2009 – Sharing Difference on Common Ground: Mangkaja, Mowanjum, Waringarri, Warmun, Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth, WA
• 2009 – Warmun Ochres: Rich Earth, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA
• 2008 – The Women of Warmun: Ten Years On, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA
• 2008 – Warmun at Ten: A Decade of Warmun Art, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW
• 2007 – Madigan Thomas, Solo Exhibition, Seva Frangos Art, Perth, WA
• 2007 – Ngarrangkarni & Bible Stories, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
• 2007 – Dog Dreamings, Seva Frangos Art, Perth, WA
• 2003 – True Stories: Art of the East Kimberley, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
• 1996 – Figures in the Land, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
• 1995 – Paintings by Warmun Women, Australian Girls Own Gallery, Canberra, ACT
• 1994 – Maintaining Family Tradition, International Year of the Family Conference, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, SA

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
• Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
• Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, ACT
• Edith Cowan University Art Collection, Perth, WA
• Northern Territory University Art Collection, Darwin, NT
• Parliamentary Art Collection, Parliament House, Perth, WA
• Kerry Stokes Collection

Artwork is accompanied by Warmun Art Centre Certificate of Authenticity

Baloowa, also known as Violet Valley, is Madigan Thomas’s Country and lies at the heart of her family, cultural identity and artistic practice. Madigan was born there around 1927 and maintained a lifelong connection to this Country. She and her husband Sandy Thomas are both buried at Baloowa, and the Country remains in the hands of their family.

Madigan grew up learning the places, stories and cultural knowledge of Baloowa and the surrounding Violet Valley and Mabel Downs area. These landscapes remained central to her paintings throughout her life, not simply as remembered places, but as Country to which she belonged and for which she carried cultural responsibility.

In this painting, Madigan uses broad fields of natural ochre to describe the hills and contours of Baloowa. Layers of brown, yellow and pink ochre are separated by her characteristic fine white dotted lines, creating a strong topographical view of the Country.

For Madigan, Baloowa (Violet Valley) is not simply a landscape. It is a painting of her own Country, carrying family history, memory and cultural knowledge across generations.