Born in Derby in 1980, Lloyd Kwilla is the son of the late Billy Thomas (Karnta Karnta), painter, medicine man and senior Lawman from the Great Sandy Desert. Kwilla spent most of his childhood at Wangkatjungka community on Christmas Creek station, where he acquired a love of the landscape that surrounded him, and an intimate knowledge of its secrets. He is now raising five young children here in the country of his forebears, and despite his young age has taken a leading role in political and cultural issues across a broad tract of country in which he has connections. A fluent English speaker ,he has been the community supervisor and council chair and works also at the Wangkajungka school.
Kwilla learned to paint alongside his father, and while this influence can be seen in some work, he has steadily developed his own distinct idiom. Using only the richly coloured ochres gathered from country, he boldly applies the hand-ground pigments to canvas in lush swathes, creating work of dramatic intensity. Art lovers have been mesmerised by his mellifluous manipulation of warm colour and dazzling white, layered to depict aerial perspectives of the Jumu (waterholes) and Tali (sand hills) of the Great Sandy Desert.
His works share the sensual richness of Thomas’s thickly applied ochres, yet possess his own highly distinctive style. He was hailed as one of the top Australian undiscovered artists by Australian Art Collector magazine and his work has featured in seven successful solo exhibitions. These have included a sell-out exhibition in Darwin at the same time as the NATSIAA 2007 and in June 2008 a fabulously successful showing in London at Rebecca Hossack Gallery that resulted in a sell-out show and almost 20 commissioned works.
Having spent his whole life in this country, Kwilla knows both its grandeur and intricacies intimately and portrays these with both surety and subtlety.