‘My Life. My family.’ by Gija artist Shirley Purdie contrasts the violent scene of a man being whipped against a tree at Barloowan (Violet Valley) with relatively peaceful domestic routines of station life on Gilban (Mabel Downs). This work illustrates the vast diversity of experience, which the station times have come to represent, for Aboriginal people across the Kimberley.

Shirley was born and grew up on Mabel Downs Station milking nanny goats and doing domestic work, while her mother mustered cattle with the men. Her family’s journey to this place is a striking tale of escape and survival in the face of cruelty on the neighbouring station of Violet Valley. After an Aboriginal worker is whipped by two white station managers in an attempt to murder him, Shirley’s grandfather formulates an escape plan that ensures the safety and well being of his family for generations to come.

The visual narrative of the work moves from the top right of the painting, down and to the left side of the image, beginning with the violence at Barloowan and moving into more peaceful memories at Gilban. This work shows the subjugation Shirley’s family endured but it is also testimony to their agency and survival in a brutal colonial world.

As Shirley herself states, “That top house (on left side) where I bin making them beds and the middle house for washing and ironing. The bottom house is where I set the table and that’s me milking the nanny goat. The right side, that’s my grandmother and my mother’s story. Up the top is when that cheeky gardiya (white person) belted that old man against the tree. So my mother and her family packed up and got away. That’s them on the cart, and they bin go to a station with a nice gardiya. That new station is where my Mum met my Dad and had all us mob, so she was happy - good place.”