Artist: Derrick Butt
Size: 76cm x 152cm
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Story from the certificate of authenticity:
"My paintings are all about the seasons. The Country is always changing. One day you might see one kind of flower and the next day they are gone, they have given way to a new kind of flower.
I see the Country in a different way. In my paintings I am looking at the Country with a birds eye view, the way you see the land when you are in a plane." - Derrick Butt
This work portrays and area of Derrick's ngurra (home Country, camp) represented aerially. During the pujiman (traditional desert dwelling) period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one's survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the locations of resources: thus psychical elements of Country, such as sources of Kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation, ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded in paintings with the use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert.
An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts as described by Derrick; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire).
