Nestled within the Thamarrurr region, this vibrant corner of Australia is home to four main ceremonial groups: The Wangga, Lirrga, Wulthirri and Thanpa peoples.  Around twenty clans and their languages extend out into remote communities and homelands throughout this region, their traditions connected in history as diverse as the land itself.

The history of art goes way back to paintings and petroglyphs found in rock shelters scattered throughout the more elevated areas in the region. In some areas these stories are intimately well-known to the Traditional Owners, they also suggest a cultural link between the Kimberly and Arnhem Land and West Daly regions. Markings can be dated back as far as 5000 years ago and up into the last century.   

The influence of commercial art found its roots in the 1950s and 1960s with a group of pioneering artists embracing bark painting. Among them in 1958, from Port Keats, Nym Bunduck of the Diminin clan observed the priest Richard Docherty, and anthropologist WEH Stanner pouring over maps. Bunduck painted his maps, explaining to his good friend Stanner, his cultural connections to his land using ochre on masonite hardboard cut-offs obtained from building sites. Some of Bunduck’s paintings are kept in the Kanamkek-Yile Museum in Wadeye. Since then, artists have explored and created a distinct style, painting motifs, totems and pictorial stories reflecting life, memories, and stories from their homelands.