Biddy Timbinah JARU / WALMAJARRI / NGARTI, b. b.c 1928

Biddy was born in the Western Desert at Kiwirrkurra in the 1920s. As a child with her dad, three mums, sister and brother, she walked 1200 kms from there to Sturt Creek Station near Halls Creek. They lived there for many years and later at Old Flora River station, where Biddy worked as a maid in the station houses. She arrived to live in Halls Creek in 1973 and in 2007 started painting her country and the stories of when she was young in the Western Desert style. In 2012, Biddy won the Mid-West Art Prize for the overall award of excellence & the best work by an Indigenous artist at the Port Hedland Art Award.

In 2015 she featured in a short documentary, uncovering the story of the inspiration for her  work- when she journeyed as a small child of the Ngardi tribe (Swan Children) with her Father and three Mothers and her siblings through the Western Desert, Kirrakurra country. We learn how they travelled to Sturt Station, surviving on bush tucker and waterholes, and the family’s first encounter with white people.