Lake MacKay - our home by Linda Syddick Napaltjarri 91x91cm CAT 11005LSN

Home for Linda was Lake MacKay, on the border of Northern Territory and Western Australia. She had lived a fully traditional life until she was a young teenager when her family left the desert during a period of severe drought in the 1960's. They were brought in to camps like Papunya are were given rations of food and water. In the late 1970's and1980's many people returned to closer to their homelands, to places like Kiwikurra and Tjukurla in the western desert.

Home and connection to country is the preoccupation for all aboriginal people.

Like many of Linda's works, there were other meanings layered into the paintings. Her ability to depict her dreamings with fusions of what was happening around her and where she was at that particular point in time is indeed wonderful. This work, whilst it represents the two Tjungarrayi and Lake Mackay, for those who know her well, it also represented two people and "their home".