One whitefella, one blackfella swimming, all them animals frightened to drink the water, that's true!

For Billy Tjampitjinpa Kenda, the desert landscape of Country, the area of Tjoritja/West MacDonnell Ranges to which the artist is connected, is a simple, and in parts, untouched, splendour. Here, where rolling hills recede into the horizon, the viewer’s eye is drawn down to a chalky white tree, and parked below, a car. In the creek nearby, a non-Indigenous and Aboriginal man take a moment of respite from the scorching desert sun, cooling down in a creek.

Kenda often uses aeroplanes, cars and trucks in his work to speak to modernity’s arrival in Central Australia, and how often, when travelling, one can overlook the inherent beauty of place. In One whitefella, one blackfella swimming, all them animals frightened to drink the water, that's true! 2022 Kenda suggests that the car is out of place, and in pulling the scene up flat, he disallows travel across the landscape. Instead, Kenda invites the viewer, like the two men in the creek, to travel across his Country, to cool down in the stream, to walk across the hot red sand, and to experience the heat upon one’s brow. This is Kenda’s call to return to Country, to actively engage with the seen and unseen in the world around us.