This work is a response to walking for ten days through the ancient Finke Gorge, on Western Arrernte country (NT), in 2021. The group meditation / pilgrimage was held mostly in silence, creating powerful conditions for intimate observation and immersion both in that place and in my own inner life.

The meandering line, varying in thickness and movement as it makes its way across the page, forms patterns, evoking the body memory of the physical experience of walking. The line leads, and yet, the negative spaces build in potency and suggestion as the line is contemplated.

As I intuitively push the brush across the page, remembering the ridges, gullies, towering rock faces, rocky river-beds, billabongs, birds and long-range horizons that I encountered on that walk, it feels as if the land is speaking directly through these lines and marks, and a sense of circling the very heart of things is simultaneously present – belonging, love, connection, embodied presence, and a deep, still, ancient silence.

Edition of 5.