Mina Mina, 1999 by Dorothy Napangardi, 83x36cm

Dorothy Napangardi was a keen observer of the seasons and how it affected the landscape. In the following work, titled 'Mina Mina, 1999", her experimentation with rain is depicted as a steady fall of rain. In addition to white, the blue-grey strokes are intersperses with the strokes using the ochre yellow and red of the landscape.

With the fine dust often prevalent in the air of the arid region, when it does rain, the initial rainfall will often be laced with dust, collecting on the raindrops as they fall in the desert region.

As the rain falls across and onto ‘ country ’, the water tracks across the landscape, into rockholes, claypans and salt lakes.

One of the artists early works, she is exploring negative space, to allow the viewer to enter into her landscape and travel in and out. The painting works on two levels, as a look straight ahead at the falling rain, as it teems down onto the desert and from an aerial perspective, the movement of the raindrops sweeping across the landscape in a striking minimalist ochres and white on black background design.

The first image is a closeup of the painting. Please click through the images to see the full painting.