Robbie Kerwin says, ‘I started doing art when I was a kid. I used to do little pencil drawings of blackfellas with spears, match stick style. And I drew trees and mia mias – they were pictures about how our people used to live years ago. I learnt a lot from Nana Jessie Kerwin and Aunty Elsie Jones.

‘When I was a kid, I never missed a day on the river with them! We’d go out early and come back late. I used to check their shrimp cans for them and make the fire. And I sat down and listened to them. Nana Jessie and Pop Snowy taught me how to cook emu in the hole, the traditional way. Aunty Elsie told me a lot of stories, like the story about the emu in the sky, the story about the falling star; how the Darling River was created by the mudlark and widened by the ngatji, how the ngatji made the waterholes and how lake Boola Boolka was formed.

Robbie with his goanna, Vicki with her Darling river fish.
Photos: Wilcannia News

‘Now I paint all those stories I heard when I was a kid. This painting with the goanna in the middle is about how everything was formed, and everything in the painting has a meaning. The emu is my totem. The white dots are the rain and floods and the background colour is the muddy water – when the river’s that colour you can eat the fish. The boomerang was thrown by Nhuurali in the story about how Lake Boola Boolka was formed.’

Robbie’s black cockies, Vicki’s river turtle, Robbie’s emu in the sky, Robbie’s butterflies. Photos:Wilcannia News

Vicki Dutton says, ‘When I was a kid I loved going down to the river with my family, going fishing and hunting. I’d sit down with pencil and paper and draw from the Darling River, everything I’d see. It made me feel good, quiet, sitting near the river listening to the birds and that. I did art at school too. I loved it and I kept on going! I paint all the animals – kangaroos and emus, fish and yabbies – lovely food they give us! And when I paint today I still feel good, quiet, the same as when I was a kid doing a drawing.

‘In this painting of fish, turtle and yabbies (above) I did the background green because I love the colour of green and I put yellow in, like the sun is shining on it. The fish are swimming round through the plants.’

This article appeared in the Wilcannia News, April 2023.